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Comment by tpmx | Hacker News Reader

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tpmx·

Do government agencies generally have that kind of liability in the first place?

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No, normally the government in Canada can be sued for this sort of thing.

not exactly the same thing, but this is a $500,000 class action lawsuit for losing a USB Key containing patient data:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2012/05/28/durham_region_he...

The expectation is that the government protect your privacy or pay if they fail to do so.. as with any private data.

But the government is financed by taxpayers, so the taxpayers will end up being the payers of any fines the government is liable for. It's circular.

Only if all taxpayers get an equal settlement. And even then perhaps that money would have been spent on another group: “sorry no fighter jets this year money went privacy lawsuits”. So some taxpayers could come out ahead in the event of privacy lawsuits.

I didn't say that all taxpayers would come out equivalently. I said taxpayers would pay.

I am not a lawyer, but if it's provable that your data was stolen, why wouldn't a citizen be able to take an entity to court for what would be reason precautions and protections around their data?

If you can show that they didn't have audits, protections against their DB, etc. then I can imagine they'd be as liable as a private entity.

But as is mentioned, this is all but demanded of Canadians to use this service, and yet the government is absolving itself of liability.

Due to the principle of sovereign immunity. A government can only be sued if it explicitly has granted permission, otherwise the government is immune from civil action.

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