Industry Canada has recently released a statement indicating that the Governor in Council intends to order that provincially regulated private sector organizations subject to the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) are exempt from the operation of the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).
Section 26(2) of PIPEDA states that if the Governor in Council is satisfied that the legislation of a province is “substantially similar” to the federal legislation, it may order that the organizations covered by the provincial legislation are exempt from the application of the federal legislation with respect to the collection, use or disclosure of personal information occurring that occurs within that province.
Notice of the proposed order was published in Part 1 of the Canada Gazette on April 10, 2004.