Fee Estimate Upheld in FOI Appeal

In an important decision for public bodies, a recent Information and Privacy Commissioner decision upheld a fee estimate for the search and redactions of electronic information.

In this case, the requester sought access to “… all records regarding two aboriginal children refusing chemotherapy at McMaster Children’s Hospital and the resulting Ontario court family division case between Hamilton Health Sciences and Brant Child and Family Services including but not limited to records regarding the Nov. 14, 2014 decision and April 24, 2015 clarification.” The requester later clarified that this request did not extend to clinical records or records subject to solicitor-client privilege.… Read More

From Lemonade Stand to Heuristica Discovery Counsel

Pamela Fontaine-Peters

Director, Litigation Support and Senior Law Clerk

I am thrilled to be an “official” member of the team at Heuristica Discovery Counsel in my new role of Director of Litigation Support.

I’ve worked in the legal industry for almost 25 years as a law clerk, certified trainer and eDiscovery consultant. Working at Heuristica allows me to use all of my technical skills and draw on my clerking experience. I look forward to meeting the challenges of this exciting position.

I have always loved technology. I was introduced to computers in public school playing a computer card program called Lemonade Stand. … Read More

Litigation Privilege Revisited

The Supreme Court of Canada recently reviewed the characteristics of litigation privilege in Lizotte v Aviva Insurance Company of Canada [1].

In this case, an Aviva claims adjuster, M.B., investigated a fire that damaged the residence of a person insured by Aviva. M.B. was later accused of making errors in managing the file. The syndic of the Chambre de l’assurance de dommages opened an investigation with respect to M.B. and requested Aviva’s entire file relating to the insured person’s claim. The request was based on s. 337 of the Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services (“ADFPS”), which says that insurers “must, at the request of a syndic, forward any required documentation or information concerning the activities of a representative”.… Read More

Thinking of self-collecting? Don’t forget to consider metadata and cybersecurity.

It is important to take precautions against altering document metadata during collection of data.

Note that metadata will be altered by, for example, collecting the data and then uploading it to a cloud computing service such as Dropbox. Another potential risk with this approach is cybersecurity – consider that 68 million email addresses and passwords were stolen from Dropbox. There may be justifiable economic reasons for an organization to self-collect, however, one must be cognizant of the potential risks.

Microsoft Wins Landmark Overseas Warrant Case

The US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit recently ruled on the highly-anticipated ‘Microsoft Ireland’ case.

In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel found in favour of Microsoft, which was challenging a warrant for the search and seizure of data held on an Irish server.

In 2013, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued the US Department of Justice a warrant under the Stored Communications Act (SCA). The Department of Justice believed that an email account hosted by Microsoft contained important information about a narcotics investigation. Microsoft provided relevant information held on US servers, but refused to produce the emails held in Ireland.… Read More