Cannabis and privacy law

Canada leads on applying privacy law to sales of recreational cannabis.  Michael McEvoy, Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (BC), Canada, explains why and how he has applied the BC privacy law to the legal retail sale of recreational cannabis. To coincide with the legalisation of recreational cannabis, he published in October 2018, Protecting Personal Information: Cannabis Transactions, the world’s first guidance on this subject. This was updated in a revised version in August 2021. He explains the main privacy issues common to the retail sale of other products in general and alcohol in particular, and the impact of the pandemic on trends which impact privacy. This guidance has additional benefits of attracting the public’s attention to their data rights, and retailers about their responsibilities.We discuss how this world leading BC guidance is now having an impact across Canada and several other countries where the law on the sale of recreational cannabis is being relaxed to fulfil a mainstream need.Listeners to this podcast can obtain the related article published in the August 2021 edition of PL&B International Report by emailing: [email protected]