Collection of Employees' Voiceprints Found not to Violate PIPEDA

In Wansink v Telus Communications Inc (2007 FCA 21), the Federal Court of Appeal found that Telus' collection of its employees' voiceprints was permitted under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Telus sought the consent of some of its employees to collect their voice recordings so that it could implement voice recognition technology (called e.Speak) for its internal computer network. e.Speak allows employees to access Telus' internal computer network by speaking on the telephone. Each employee's voice recording would be used to create a unique voiceprint that e.Speak would use to authenticate their identities. The system is designed so that individual consent must be obtained before an employee's voiceprint is collected, and e.Speak is only available to those who sign up to use it. Some Telus employees opposed the move, claiming that this collection of their personal information violated PIPEDA. Initially, the Federal Privacy Commissioner investigated the employees' claim and found that Telus' request to collect their voiceprints was permitted under PIPEDA because it was for a reasonable purpose, and Telus had appropriate privacy safeguards in place. In an application in Federal Court, Justice Gibson upheld the ruling of the Privacy Commissioner. The appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal was dismissed. The Court found that voice characteristics are at the lower end of the spectrum of privacy rights protected under PIPEDA, and the collection of the employees' voiceprints was reasonable in these circumstances and therefore was permitted under section 5(3) of PIPEDA. The FCA also found that Telus fulfilled its obligations under Principle 3 of PIPEDA by attempting to obtain employees' consent before recording their voiceprints. For the full text of the decision, see: http://decisions.fca-caf.gc.ca/en/2007/2007fca21/2007fca21.html Summary by: Andrei Edwards