Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s 2024-2025 Annual Report Highlights Key Trends

On June 5, 2025, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) tabled its 2024-2025 Annual Report (the Annual Report) to Parliament on the Privacy Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). The Annual Report highlights the OPC’s progress over the past year in prioritizing privacy and data protection for Canadians in a data-driven world.

In the Annual Report, the OPC describes the following key trends that are dominating the privacy landscape both domestically and abroad:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI). Generative AI is being increasingly integrated into the services used by individuals on a regular basis and such use is accompanied by the collection of large volumes of user personal information (e.g., personal information disclosed in queries made to AI chatbots).
• Data Breaches. The cybersecurity threat landscape continues to be an important issue with the OPC seeing a similar number of breach reports in 2024-2025 as with the previous year.
• Youth Privacy. The OPC reinforced that privacy is an important priority for protecting young people as they continue to embrace social media and new technologies. This issue resonates with parents and many (74% as found in a February 2025 OPC survey) have little-to-no trust that businesses will protect their children’s personal information.

The Annual Report included key statistics for data breaches and complaints made under federal privacy statutes. For data breaches, the OPC noted that the number of individuals affected by a data breach reported under the Privacy Act increased by more than 124% when compared to the previous fiscal year, while the number of individuals affected under PIPEDA decreased by 20%. The OPC also received 11% more complaints under the Privacy Act and 32% under PIPEDA when compared to the previous year. For complaints under both statutes, the OPC did not observe any specific factors that led to this year’s increase.

The Annual Report also highlights significant collaborative projects undertaken by the OPC, such as joint investigations with provincial privacy regulators into the privacy practices of global businesses like TikTok and OpenAI; and consultations with law enforcement and intelligence communities on privacy issues in the use of body-worn cameras and facial recognition programs.

Summary By: Amy Ariganello