Canadian Privacy Decisions

The complainant alleged that the Department of National Defence (DND) improperly refused to issue a new response letter for a request concerning authority to generate Branch Standing Orders. DND stated that no records were found after a thorough search and included additional contextual information and hyperlinks to publicly available documents. The complainant argued this contextual information was speculative and breached DND's duty to assist. The Information Commissioner of Canada (OIC) found that DND's response was complete and appropriate, and the supplementary information was provided in good faith to assist the requester without misrepresenting the search results or creating new records.

• Whether DND improperly refused to issue a new response letter.
• Whether DND's inclusion of contextual information breached its duty to assist requesters.
• Whether DND's response accurately and completely addressed the access request.

This joint investigation by Canadian privacy authorities found that TikTok's collection and use of personal information, particularly from children, for ad targeting and content personalization was inappropriate and lacked valid consent. TikTok failed to implement adequate age verification measures, leading to the collection of data from underage users without a legitimate purpose. The investigation also found that TikTok's privacy communications were unclear, not easily accessible, and not available in French, failing to provide meaningful consent from adult and youth users for its data practices.

• Appropriate purpose for collecting and using children's personal information.
• Obtaining valid and meaningful consent for tracking, profiling, and targeted advertising.
• Transparency obligations regarding collection and use of personal information for user profiling.
• Adequacy of age assurance measures to prevent underage users from accessing the platform.

The complainant alleged that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) failed to conduct a reasonable search for records concerning allegations of political interference with the Attorney General's functions related to the SNC-Lavalin prosecution. The investigation found that the RCMP did not adequately search records within the requested timeframe and improperly deemed a large police reporting file irrelevant. The Information Commissioner ordered the RCMP to conduct a new search and process the previously excluded file.

• Reasonableness of the search conducted by the RCMP.
• Timeliness of the search conducted by the RCMP.
• Relevance of the Police Reporting and Occurrence System (PROS) file.