Bill C-42: No Privacy in American Skies

Written on March 31, 2011.

Before Bill C-42, the Aeronautics Act only allowed a Canadian airline to provide passenger information to a foreign country when a passenger was landing at or departing from that country.

Now, with Bill C-42, the Aeronautics Act allows Canadian airlines to provide passenger information to the U.S. Transport Security Administration for international flights that overfly the United States when they are destined to land in another foreign state. It would apply to virtually all flights to Caribbean and South American destinations. Bill C-42 expressly states that this can be done despite the privacy protection under section 5 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

This amendment obliges operators of aircrafts to inform passengers that information relating to them may be provided to a competent authority in the United States even if they are only overflying the U.S.