7 steps to a successful Bill 25 compliance program

1.  Appoint your privacy officer and his/her team

Identify the people in your company who will make up your information governance committee(s), and specify the role, tasks and responsibilities of each stakeholder.  Familiarize yourself with the obligations arising from Bill 25, identify the personal information processed by the organization, and map out your processing activities. Adopt the necessary resolutions.

2.  Implement your privacy incident management process 

Familiarize yourself with the concepts of privacy incident and risk of serious harm. Learn when and how to notify data subjects and supervisory authorities in the event of an incident. Set up a policy, recovery plan and incident log.

3.  Drafy the policies, guidelines, procedures and registers needed to establish an appropriate corporate culture and governance framework

A simple privacy policy published on your website is not enough to make you compliant with the obligations of Bill 25. In particular, you need one or more policies for protecting the personal information of customers and employees, and you need to manage the various consents required or their withdrawal, and communicate everything properly.

4.  Assess your relationship with subcontractors with whom you share personal information

Determine when and how to carry out a privacy impact assessment in the event of data transfer with a third party or outside Quebec. Validate the posture of your subcontractors with respect to Bill 25 obligations and agree to information security agreements, if required.

5.  Manage your data

Implement an integrated information management policy, a classification plan and a retention schedule for personal and confidential information held by the organization.

6.  Secure your data 

Implement an information security policy and manage access to personal and confidential information. Adopt the required policies for telecommuting, use of mobile devices, encryption solutions, anonymization or pseudonymization. Implement appropriate technological tools and an internal audit procedure.

7.  Train your staff (ongoing)

It's crucial to provide your employees and other staff with access to your systems with training on privacy risks, their responsibilities and the new technological tools deployed within your company. Your employees need to understand their role in your governance program. They need to understand the importance of protecting the personal information you handle in the course of your business.Don't forget to provide regular reminders of good practices and repeat key messages.

Implementing a governance program is a never-ending project. You'll need to continually review and update your policies, as well as ensuring that you remain compliant with changes in legislation and third-party contracts. 

To achieve this, make sure you build a flexible, future-proof program.

Our team can help you set up a comprehensive governance program within your company, and offer advice on assessing, monitoring and enforcing compliance. Finally, to make costs more affordable and benefit from the collegiality of exchanges between organizations working in the same field, find out more about our pooled offerings for groups and associations. 

Contact us today before your company suffers a privacy incident that could affect its reputation or even jeopardize its survival. 

Copyright protects literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works as well as performances, sound recordings and communication signals. Its owner has the exclusive right to produce, reproduce, publish, or perform the work in whole or in part, including for commercial purposes. We can put in place protection mechanisms that consider the most recent advances and best practices in the sector.

It is important to remember that copyright protects all forms of literature and art, and that the concept has evolved over time to protect many forms of digital and technological works. If someone is copying your website, or if you want to protect a computer code, copyright may be the best option.

In connection with trademarks, it is to the advantage of any business to be the owner of the copyright on its logos. An assignment of copyright must be evidenced in writing. Paying an outside firm or consultant to create a logo or website, for example, is not equivalent to an assignment of copyright.

There are also other strategies to better protect your copyrights. We can advise you on these strategies, as well as in the negotiation and drafting of various copyright agreements.

Industrial design relates to the visual characteristics of the shape, pattern, and decorative elements of a manufactured article for the purpose of reproducing it on an assembly line. Industrial design protection can cover the appearance of various common objects, for example: the shape of a chair, a piece of jewelry or a bottle, the shape and pattern of clothing, or the graphical user interface of a device. The appearance of utilitarian objects is an important criterion that influences the purchase of a product. Industrial design registration provides you with an exclusivity that represents an important competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Our team can assist you in the protection and defense of your intellectual property rights. Whether you are thinking of having your rights recognized, suing infringers, unfair competitors, counterparties for breach of contract, bankruptcy, or non-performance of an obligation, or responding to any of these situations, we can recommend the best strategies to protect your rights, whether they are judicial or administrative. We can represent you in litigation before the Federal Court or any other court.

A patent protects an invention, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, and the improvement of any of them that is new, useful, and non-obvious to a person skilled in the art.  In Canada, as in most countries, obtaining a patent therefore makes it possible to prevent third parties from making, selling, or using an invention for a maximum period of 20 years from the date of the patent application, for those countries for which registration has been obtained. A patent is therefore an asset, which can also be sold or for which licenses to use or market the invention can be granted to third parties in return for remuneration. Our lawyers can advise you on strategies for the internationalization of your patent, on the agreements to be put in place with your employees, consultants, and business contacts, to ensure the eventual registrability of the patent, as well as for the negotiation and drafting of patent assignment and licensing agreements.

A large part of what distinguishes any business or organization is its know-how, its secrets, which no one wants to see revealed to the competition. Our lawyers can advise you on the best strategies to adopt from a legal point of view with your employees, consultants, subcontractors, and business contacts, as well as in the drafting of documents and contracts aimed at ensuring the confidentiality and controlled use of this valuable information, for which it is also possible to assign rights or grant licenses for a fee.

A trademark allows you to distinguish yourself from the competition. Whether it is made up of words, images, sound, holograms, colors, textures or moving images, it is a guarantee of reputation and recognition that are essential aspects of the brand image of any private or public business or organization. Our trademark lawyers and agents ensure that your trademarks are protected and enhanced, both in Canada and abroad.