September 9th - 2005

Unsolicited e-mail violates privacy act

With federal legislation for a do-not-call registry looming, REALTORS need to work around another potential barrier to their marketing efforts: do not e-mail.

With federal legislation for a do-not-call registry looming, REALTORS need to work around another potential barrier to their marketing efforts: do not e-mail.

In a recent decision, the Assistant Privacy Commissioner ruled that an organization was in breach of the federal privacy law (PIPEDA) when it used a person’s business e-mail address to contact him for marketing purposes, without his consent. The individual lodged a complaint after he received an unsolicited e-mail message at work promoting tickets to a sporting event. When he asked the ticket sales representative how the organization got his e-mail address, he was told they had collected it off his employer’s web site.

Despite an assurance that he would be removed from the organization’s marketing list, a few weeks later, he received another e-mail from the same sports organization. The organization had obtained his e-mail address from two publicly available web site directories and failed to cross-reference his request to be deleted from the list.

The Assistant Commissioner decided that since a business e-mail address is not included in the exceptions listed in Section 2 of PIPEDA, it is considered to be personal information. Part of Section 2 sets out the types of information that are not protected by the Act, specifically the name, title, business address or telephone number of an employee of an organization.

The employer’s intent for publishing the employee directory was to further the organization’s interests, not for marketing products unrelated to its business. The sports organization was found in breach of PIPEDA because it collected the individual’s personal information – his business e-mail address – and used it to contact him for marketing purposes without his consent and not for the purpose for which it was made public.

Unless a court rules otherwise or PIPEDA is amended to clearly exempt business e-mail addresses in future, they must be treated as personal information. REALTORS should remember that even if you obtain someone’s e-mail address from a publicly available source, it should only be collected, used or disclosed for the purpose that it was made publicly available unless you have the individual’s consent to do otherwise.

To view the official decision summary – No. 297– of this case, visit the Privacy Commissioner’s web site at http://www.privcom.gc.ca/cf-dc/2005/297_050331_01_e.asp.

A more detailed version of this decision can be found in MyOREA-Legal-Privacy Compliance.

All of the latest information regarding privacy decisions and other privacy issues can be obtained by subscribing to “Privacy Matters!” OREA’s free privacy newsletter service for Ontario’s REALTORS. To subscribe, simply log on to MyOREA-Legal-Privacy Compliance and signing up online in the form provided.

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For more information contact

Ontario Real Estate Association

Jean-Adrien Delicano

Senior Manager, Media Relations

JeanAdrienD@orea.com

416-445-9910 ext. 246

Ontario Real Estate Association
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