Canadian University Challenges Order Regarding Employee Monitoring

The University of British Columbia (UBC) is challenging a finding of the BC Information & Privacy Commissioner under the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) in a case involving spyware used to track an employee's computer use in the workplace. UBC had installed software to monitor Internet use by employees and, on the basis of information gathered by such monitoring (Collected Information), dismissed the complainant, without any prior notice or warning, for spending too much time on personal Internet use at work. The dismissal itself is the subject of parallel but separate grievance arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement, and the grievance arbitrator had issued an order that the Collected Information be produced in the grievance proceedings. The Adjudicator under FIPPA, Catherine Boies Parker, ruled that requirements under FIPPA had not been met, both in respect of the collection of the Collected Information and in respect of its manner of collection. However, faced with the complainant's request that the Collected Information be destroyed, the Adjudicator had to decide whether granting such a request was appropriate, given the apparently conflicting and prior order that the Collected Information be produced to the arbitrator. In the result, the Adjudicator ordered that UBC be prohibited from using the Collected Information except to comply with the arbitrator's order and that UBC also cease collecting such information in the future. The University has applied for judicial review of the Adjudicator's order. For a copy of the full reasons of the Adjudicator, visit: http://www.oipc.bc.ca/orders/2007/OrderF07-18.pdf Summary by: James Kosa