Misrepresentation and Privacy laws

[farzi]

Hi

I would greatly appreciate if someone could share their knowledge on this.

In case of an appeal against misrepresentation charges, can CIC (or the Crown or anyone for that matter) force any information out of a university about one's application details or education details?

If it is a government university that protects one's privacy according to provincial privacy acts, is it true that CIC can only work on the court case with all information they have at hand or the info that the defendant has provided them directly,
and they cannot make him/her or the university disclose any information as an evidence for the court case?


Thanks a lot!
DP

 

[Buletruck]

The simple answer would be yes. Privacy acts allow for the release of information without your consent in an investigation of fraud (or other criminal investigation) or for compliance to a government program by authorized bodies. IRCC is most likely one of those bodies designated. Whether they would or not is a different matter. Ultimately, all it would take is a court order to release any information the institution had that was deemed relevant to the case.

 

[dpenabill]

Largely agree with Buletruck.

Privacy protection is not absolute, no where near absolute. There is a complex web of rules and laws governing what information can be shared with whom in what circumstances.


For example, otherwise, students would be unable to have schools provide transcripts to other schools or prospective employers.

As Buletruck indicated, there are rules allowing for sharing information to specified government entities if and when protocol thresholds are shown, and typically formal investigations have quite a lot of leeway in obtaining information.

And information is almost always accessible if grounds for it can be established pursuant to jurisprudence for the issuance of warrants, but that does involve a judicial decision and a more formal process, so would be unusual unless and until there is a RCMP investigation into potential criminal matters.