"Digital Privacy in Civil Discovery: The Relevance of 'Charter Values'"
Abstract
Beginning with an overview of the Supreme Court's treatment of digital interests over the last decade (Jochelson and Ireland), the papers are then grouped into three areas of concern. Stewart, Levin and Deziel each endeavour to reconsider prevailing approaches to the concept of a reasonable expectation of privacy, probing its theoretical underpinnings and proposing reform of its use under section 8 of the Charter. A second group of papers explores the application of Charter values in different contexts affecting privacy, including the Criminal Code's voyeurism provisions and the Supreme Court's treatment of them in R. v. Jarvis (2019) (Bailey and Dong, Hunt); digital privacy in civil discovery (Acharya and Currie); and access to justice (Eltis). A third group of papers examines new frontiers for Charter jurisprudence, including tracking and tracing apps developed and deployed in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic (Scassa); the police use of familial DNA databases (Fehr); and the use of complainant digital records in sexual assault trials (Diab and Young). Together, the collection offers a valuable source of analysis of and insight into major developments in privacy law on a range of issues, and will likely be relevant to privacy debates for many years to come.
