PitbLAWg may be AWOL on January 18, 2012.
In a USA Today article “TwitPic, WordPress to go dark for online SOPA protest” Yamiche Alcindor reported that WordPress, along with other websites will not available on Wednesday January 18, 2012 to protest the proposed US legislation, Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act.
WordPress is the host site for PitbLAWg. If WordPress is not available then PitbLAWg will not be online for the day. However, we expect that WordPress and PitbLAWg with be back up and running on Thursday January 19th.
PitbLAWg takes no position on the proposed legislation or on the blackout. Thanks for following PitbLAWg and we hope to see you back on January 19th.
Privacy Commissioner releases report on online tracking, profiling and targeting, and cloud computing
Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has just released the final report of her Office’s consultations on the online tracking, profiling and targeting of consumers by marketers and other businesses. “Most people have no idea about the rich trail of data they leave behind when they browse the Internet, use social networking sites, or engage the geo-location functions of their mobile devices,” the Commissioner observed. Organizations that track the online activities of Canadians must be more upfront about their practices, Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has concluded… “it comes down to meaningful consent, which entails informed consent”.
Fines needed to help stem growing data breaches, Privacy Commissioner says
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has called for legislation empowering her to impose substantial fines against major corporations that fail to adequately protect Canadians’ personal information from preventable breaches.
“I am deeply troubled by the large number of major breaches we are seeing, including serious incidents in recent weeks that have affected hundreds of thousands of Canadians,’’ Jennifer Stoddart said in a speech today at the Canada 3.0 forum in Stratford, Ont. “It seems to me that it’s time to begin imposing fines – significant, attention-getting fines – on companies when poor privacy and security practices lead to breaches.’’
To learn more, read the complete news release.
Fraud Prevention Month to focus on online fraud
I just posted information about March being Fraud Prevention Month on my On the Cutting Edge blog. As you’ll see in my post, The Competition Bureau’s website provides some great education and prevention information including a new interactive quiz designed to test consumers’ and businesses’ fraud awareness. I’d encourage you to take the quiz!
Fake ID and the GST
How often do you check the ID of your suppliers?
If you run a business you are likely familiar with how GST works. When purchasing inventory and supplies, your business must pay the GST to the supplier, but may then claim an input tax credit (an “ITC”) offsetting the tax paid. To claim an ITC you need to know the GST registration number of the supplier.
What you might not know is that if your supplier has given you a fake registration number, or even a valid number that is not his, your business can not claim the ITCs and may be on the hook for a hefty tax bill.
In the recent case of Comtronic Computer Inc. v. The Queen this is effectively what happened. An apparently nefarious supplier gave Comtronic GST registration numbers that although validly-issued, belonged to other businesses. Comtronic failed to check the validity of the registration numbers. As a result, its claims for ITCs of nearly $500,000 were denied and it was also assessed a 6% penalty.
The law is clear that risk of supplier “GST ID theft” rests with your business, not the Crown.
Don’t make the same mistake. Your business should take active precautions to guard against this sort of ID theft. You can check the validity of GST/HST registration numbers using the CRA’s online registry or by calling the CRA’s business enquiries line.
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Authors
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Mark Wallace
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Philip Watts
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Brant Harvey
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Caroline Kiva
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Adam Herstein
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Andrew Buck
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Benjamin Hecht
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Bradley Madison
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Rob Giesbrecht
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Ned Brown
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Candace Everard Grammond
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Lori Dobbie
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Darryl Antel
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Andrew Ogaranko
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Michael Puchniak
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Bill Gardner
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Tracey Epp
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Richard Buchwald
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Ron Greasley
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Administrator
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Douglas G. Ward, Q.C.
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Brian Bowman
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Courtney Chambers
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Bruce King
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newmandavidg
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