Latest news with #Feasby
Edmonton Journal
26-06-2025
- Business
- Edmonton Journal
Lawyer seeks to add Alberta corporations to list of plaintiffs in COVID-related class-action lawsuit
Article content 'They're still suffering from these orders. They're still suffering from a massive debt burden,' the lawyer said. But Dube said the group would not be limited to just small corporations. 'The proposed class of all corporations in Alberta run the whole gamut,' he said. Last Oct. 30, the Calgary Court of King's Bench judge ruled the class action could proceed on behalf of individual business owners who may have suffered losses due to unauthorized restrictions imposed by the Jason Kenney government. Feasby said the case can proceed on six common issues impacting all business owners affected by measures imposed by provincial cabinet and issued in the name of Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw. In 2023, Justice Barb Romaine ruled the measures ordered were unlawfully imposed under the Public Health Act because the decisions to issue the CMOH orders were made by cabinet and not Hinshaw. The province has appealed Feasby's certification of the class action, but did not challenge Romaine's earlier ruling the government acted illegally. Feasby said he will try to hand down a decision by next month.
Calgary Herald
25-06-2025
- Business
- Calgary Herald
Lawyer seeks to add Alberta corporations to list of plaintiffs in COVID-related class-action lawsuit
Alberta corporations negatively impacted by unlawful provincial COVID-19 measures should be added to the class of plaintiffs suing the government over business losses, a lawyer argued Wednesday. Article content Jeffrey Rath said there is likely a large group of corporations impacted by the measures who should be entitled to join a class-action lawsuit proceeding on behalf of individual business owners who lost money due to government actions. Article content Article content Article content Rath said concerns raised by Justice Colin Feasby and Alberta Justice lawyer John-Marc Dube that major corporations would join the fray are unfounded. Article content Article content He said adding corporations to the lawsuit, which Feasby certified as a class-action case last fall, would allow smaller mom-and-pop companies to be represented before the court. Article content 'Just because there are multi-billion-dollar corporations in Alberta should not mean that these smaller corporations should be precluded,' Rath said. Article content While major corporations have the resources to proceed with their own litigation, the vast majority of Alberta companies would be small operations, he argued. Article content 'There are lots of mom-and-pops running their own corporations.' Article content Rath, who currently represents a class certified by Feasby of Alberta business owners impacted by the measures introduced at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, said many smaller incorporated operations are in the same boat. Article content Article content 'They're still suffering from these orders. They're still suffering from a massive debt burden,' the lawyer said. Article content But Dube said the group would not be limited to just small corporations. Article content 'The proposed class of all corporations in Alberta run the whole gamut,' he said. Article content Last Oct. 30, the Calgary Court of King's Bench judge ruled the class action could proceed on behalf of individual business owners who may have suffered losses due to unauthorized restrictions imposed by the Jason Kenney government. Article content Feasby said the case can proceed on six common issues impacting all business owners affected by measures imposed by provincial cabinet and issued in the name of Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw. Article content In 2023, Justice Barb Romaine ruled the measures ordered were unlawfully imposed under the Public Health Act because the decisions to issue the CMOH orders were made by cabinet and not Hinshaw. Article content
Global News
14-05-2025
- Business
- Global News
Alberta's personal information protection law ruled partly unconstitutional
Parts of Alberta's personal information protection legislation have been ruled unconstitutional. But the ruling from Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby also upheld an order to stop an American facial recognition company from collecting images of Albertans. Clearview AI scrapes the internet and social media for images of people and adds them to a database, which it markets to law enforcement agencies as a facial recognition tool. Canada's privacy commissioner, along with commissioners from Alberta, B.C. and Quebec, issued an order in 2021 for Clearview AI to stop operating in the country and delete images of Canadians collected without their consent. Police used the company's services on a trial basis before commissioners launched an investigation. Clearview AI, which has not operated in Alberta since 2020, applied for a judicial review of the order as well as a ruling on the constitutionality of Alberta's personal information protection legislation. Story continues below advertisement Feasby, in a decision released last week, says the order stands, but parts of Alberta's legislation are unconstitutional. Clearview AI did not respond to a request for comment. 2:06 Privacy investigation finds U.S. tech firm violated Canadian rules with facial-recognition tool The judge's decision says regulations under Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act don't properly address privacy considerations posed by the internet and its restrictions for requiring consent are too broad. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy It says the company argued that Alberta's privacy commissioner misinterpreted what 'publicly available' means under that act, as the legislation permits entities to collect personal information without consent from publicly available sources. 'The public availability exception to the consent requirement is really a source-based exception,' Feasby writes, adding that the internet, let alone social media, isn't specifically listed as a publicly available source of information. Story continues below advertisement Instead, Alberta's rules say publicly available personal information includes that which is 'contained in a publication, including, but not limited to, a magazine, book or newspaper, whether in printed or electronic form.' Since social media isn't listed, Clearview argued that Alberta's commissioner didn't take the phrase 'but not limited to' far enough by not including social media, the decision says. The company cited case law 'where it is established that an individual 'can have no reasonable expectation of privacy in what he or she knowingly exposes to the public.'' But the act has an exception on the collection of publicly available information without consent, based on 'reasonable use.' The commissioners previously decided Clearview's web scraping for a facial recognition database wasn't a reasonable use of publicly available information. Feasby agreed, saying Alberta has a 'substantial interest in protecting personal information from being used in a facial recognition database,' since people likely don't expect their social media posts to wind up in a 'potentially harmful' database. But the judge also ruled in the company's favour. He says the publicly available exception was too broad, as it allows the privacy commissioner to choose who it enforces the rules against, noting Alberta hasn't penalized other web scraping companies like Google. 'The commissioner's decision to take enforcement action against Clearview and not others who collect, use and disclose personal information publicly available on the internet suggests that some collection, use and disclosure of personal information publicly available on the internet is not problematic,' the judge writes. Story continues below advertisement To remedy the issue, the judge says the 'including, but not limited to, a magazine, book or newspaper' clause of the exception should be struck and simply replaced with 'publication.' 'This leaves the word 'publication' to take its ordinary meaning, which I characterize as 'something that has been intentionally made public,'' he says. Technology Minister Nate Glubish, the minister responsible for the legislation, said Wednesday he wasn't surprised by the ruling, adding the act is 'badly out of date.' He said a committee was struck last year to review the legislation and submitted recommendations for updates. 'We're reviewing those recommendations, and we're looking forward to working over the coming summer to ensure that we're ready to bring forward some modernizations to PIPA in the very near future,' said Glubish. 'Our goal is to make sure that Alberta has the strongest privacy protections in the country, and we're confident we're going to be able to deliver on that.' Since the order is upheld, Clearview is still required to cease collecting images of Albertans and delete those already collected. The company argued its software prevented it from deleting images, because it's not clear which images were collected from and taken in Alberta. But the judge found that wasn't a valid reason. Feasby ordered the company to report within 50 days on steps it has taken to comply. Story continues below advertisement Last year, a B.C. judge also upheld the order delivered by that province's privacy commissioner.
