News

Majority of the Court of Appeal find a thumbs up emoji was an electronic signature for the purposes of The Sale of Goods Act

In Achter Land & Cattle Ltd. v South West Terminal Ltd., the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal was called upon to consider whether a contract was validly formed under the province’s Sale of Goods Act via a replied “thumbs up” emoji.

A purchaser of grain and a commodities vendor disputed whether a valid contract arose for the sale of grain, the discussion of which took place over text messages. An employee of the vendor sent a proposed agreement to the putative purchaser and requested confirmation. The proposed agreement was an image of the front page of the proposed agreement, along with the words “Please confirm flax contract.” What came back was a simple thumbs up emoji. 

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As resources for dealing with AI in legal settings emerge, so too do court decisions dealing with it as evidence

The Canadian legal world has slowly but surely begun various efforts to figure out, react to and (in appropriate circumstances) embrace the many issues raised by the onslaught of “artificial intelligence” (AI) and specifically one of its main manifestations, “generative artificial intelligence” (GenAI). GenAI, as is well known, is the subset of AI that creates content (text, images, sounds), its capacity for which is generated by “training” on large sets of data (the latter has been gained primarily from internet scraping, which has generated numerous intellectual property issues and at least one federal government consultation report). In law as in many sectors, much attention has been focused on “large language models” (LLMs), GenAI platforms that produce text and images in response to user prompts, and are designed to mimic human behaviour and/or tasks.

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L. Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic students at the 2024 Fall CAN-TECH conference. Left to right: Ken Vong (2L), Daniel Rosenthal (3L), Paul Chorney (2L), Serena Bevilacqua (2L), Connor Giesbrecht (3L), Jennifer Davidson Partner at Deeth Williams Wall LLP and Past President of CAN-TECH, Andrew Alleyne Partner at Fasken and President of CAN-TECH, Skylar Ferbers (3L), Lauren Martin (3L), Jordan Wagner (3L), Kassandra Taverner (3L) and Carly Lafond (3L).

We were delighted to come across Skylar Ferbers and Lauren Martin's article from the University of Manitoba, L . Kerry Vickar Business Law Clinic  on the Manitoba students who participated in this year’s 2024 CAN-TECH Fall Conference - Exploring New Frontiers in Technology and Law in Toronto. In the article, Skylar and Lauren capture the students' drive and enthusiasm, shining a light on their innovative contributions and insightful perspectives on the future of technology law in Canada.

This year’s conference offered a platform for these young professionals to network with industry leaders, learn about the latest advancements, and gain firsthand experience in a rapidly evolving field. It’s inspiring to see how Manitoba’s next generation is already making strides, as Skylar and Lauren beautifully details in their article.

We invite our readers to explore the full article here for an in-depth look at the students’ experiences and achievements.

Thank you, Skylar and Lauren, for such a well-crafted and inspiring article.

https://www.cantechlaw.ca/cantechawards

The 2024 CAN-TECH Fall Conference Awards was a fantastic event, honoring two exceptional individuals in the field of technology law. Andrew Nunes received the CAN-TECH Award of Distinction, and Shreya Gupta was recognized with the CAN-TECH Rising Star in Tech Law Award, at the CAN-TECH Fall Conference Dinner, presented by Andrew Alleyne, CAN-TECH Law President.

The Annual Fall Conference Dinner provided the perfect setting to honor these outstanding individuals. We offer our congratulations to Andrew Nunes and Shreya Gupta and extend our gratitude to all the attendees who made this event a success. Your presence added depth to the celebration of excellence in technology law, and we look forward to future gatherings.

           

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Regulation of the production of AI “products”—is it possible? And how? Some interesting insights in this article: 

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Consent is to be determined on an objective standard, and “trust but verify” those who get access to personal information

On September 9, 2024, a unanimous three judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal fully reversed the factual conclusions of the court below to conclude that Facebook had violated the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”) in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Rather than sending it back to the Federal Court to be determined by another judge, they reached their own conclusions and invited submissions on remedy.

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Ontario Court of Appeal rules that random or unsubstantiated searches are unconstitutional—reasonable suspicion required

For a goodly amount of time, concern has been expressed about the tendency of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers and other border officials to search devices (phones, tablets, laptops) in the possession of people arriving at Canada’s border, without having to demonstrate any grounds for so doing. In particular, s. 99(1)(a) of the federal Customs Act permits, on its face, officers to search “goods that have been imported” without judicial authorization or grounds for the search whatsoever. It is this provision that has been invoked as authority for device searches, despite the intense privacy concerns that attach to devices and their contents, and the Crown’s position has seen pushback in litigation, before Parliament and in the literature.

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We are very pleased to announce Shreya Gupta as the winner of the 2024 CAN-TECH Rising Star in Tech Law Award.

Shreya Gupta is Director, Legal Counsel (Technology, AI and Privacy) at Loblaw Companies Limited. Prior to Loblaw, Shreya was an associate in Norton Rose Fulbright's Toronto office.  Shreya focuses on technology, artificial intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity and information governance matters. She also advises clients entering into a variety of complex commercial transactions. Shreya is a skilled negotiator and has successfully drafted technology-focused agreements and led negotiations on behalf of startups as well as large organizations. She takes a very practical approach to advising clients and relies on her business background and expertise in doing so.

Shreya recently co-authored a book published by LexisNexis titled, “Legal Guide to Emerging Technologies.” In 2022-2023, Shreya also served as acting general counsel (on secondment) at 7shifts Inc., a team management software provider, while simultaneously managing a busy technology practice at NRF.

Shreya is recognized as a leader by her colleagues given her involvement at NRF as well as in the community. She served as the Co-Chair of NRF’s Race Equity Council for the past four years since its inauguration in Canada to progress the firm's race equity strategy, and regularly speaks on panels and delivers training sessions on technology and privacy matters.

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 CAN-TECH Law Award of Distinction winner is Andrew Nunes!

Andrew is a Vice-Chair of Fasken’s Business Law Department (Ontario), Co-Leader of the Firm’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) group and Leader of the Technology Law group for the Ontario region. His practice encompasses numerous aspects of corporate and commercial law, with a particular emphasis on the technology sector and technology related matters.

Andrew routinely assists with establishing, growing and exiting technology-driven businesses, while helping organizations navigate operational, transactional, governance and compliance issues. In addition to buying and selling technology businesses, Andrew’s in-depth knowledge is regularly sought by technology providers and technology users on the development, protection and commercialization of technology products and services. He also provides key insights into the Canadian legislative and regulatory regimes related to information technology (IT), e-commerce, consumer protection, data protection, cyber security, anti-spam, artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies.

Andrew has accumulated extensive experience in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, corporate reorganizations, joint ventures, business partnerships, complex outsourcings and other transactions. Blue-chip corporations and leading-edge technology companies based in Canada and the U.S. alike rely on Andrew’s guidance for their business-critical decisions and transactions.

An active leader in the wider technology law community, Andrew is Past Chair of the Ontario Bar Association IT and E-Commerce Section and a current Officer of the International Bar Association (IBA) Technology Law 2 Committee. He also served an extended term on the Board of Directors of TechConnex, a leading Canadian technology industry association. His practice is consistently recognized by Chambers Global, Chambers Canada, Lexpert and Best Lawyers. In 2023, Andrew was appointed to the IBA Artificial Intelligence (AI) Presidential Task Force, an initiative that will form part of the IBA Presidential Priorities identified for the 2023/2024 term.

The Supreme Court has determined that school boards are subject to the Charter in all that they do, including employee discipline

The Supreme Court of Canada has decided – decisively – in York Region District School Board v. Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario that the Charter applies to protect the privacy of employees of a public school board in Ontario in the context of a computer search. 

In this case, two teachers employed at Mount Joy Public School, York Region, faced issues shortly after the 2014-15 school year began. They believed another teacher was ineffective and unfairly favored by the school principal. Concerned about their performance reviews, one of the teachers sought union advice and was told to document her concerns.

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