Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Another of the Commissioner's ongoing recommendations from past years is that the NWT enact its own "made-in-the-north" privacy legislation to regulate how the private sector collects, uses and discloses personal information. As an example of a concern with how the private sector handles personal information, she cited the continued practice of some NWT businesses of printing credit card numbers in their entirety on transaction slips. In southern Canada, it is now standard to print partial numbers only, which helps to prevent theft.

Although the NWT private sector is already regulated by the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Commissioner points out that a small and distant office in Ottawa is unlikely to have the time to address complaints and issues of a local nature. PIPEDA also does not protect employees from misuse of their personal information by employers. Some other Canadian jurisdictions, including Alberta and B.C., have already enacted provincial legislation to address the gaps left by PIPEDA.

The GNWT has indicated it intends to review the effectiveness of PIPEDA in 2006 in order to determine whether territorial legislation is also necessary. The committee looks forward to seeing the results of this review.