The Ontario Court of Appeal recently created a right to sue for "deliberate and significant" invasions of privacy, causing speculation on how other provinces will treat privacy infractions going forward. Eileen Vanderburgh writes for the Insurance Law Blog that the BC Privacy Act creates a statutory tort for privacy violations that encompasses invasions such as that in the Ontario case, adding that recent court cases have "confirmed that there was no free-standing tort of invasion of privacy." Based on this and "the existence of the statutory rights of action...for damages," Vanderburgh writes, "it is not likely" BC courts will recognize a similar common law tort for "intrusion upon seclusion."
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