The Canadian government has told a local cable operator that it can't publicly shame customers with overdue accounts on Facebook. As we noted yesterday, a Canadian company by the name of Senga Services had taken to posting lists of overdue customer accounts on Facebook. When criticized for the measure, a company representative scolded customers for "living beyond their means," insisting that "we run a business, not a charity."
Apparently the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada doesn't agree.
Senga pulled the Facebook posts offline after being contacted by the Commissioner's office. The office agrees that while Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act "allows organizations to use or disclose people's personal information only for the purpose for which they gave consent," Senga's behavior may not fit the bill.
"There is also an over-arching clause that personal information may only be collected, used and disclosed for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate under the circumstances," said the Commissioner's office in a statement.
So you would advocate your privacy being violated for say 2 days of being late? This makes you a deadbeat? No it makes you the same as anyone else living paycheck to paycheck, thats not living above your means, thats living life as most people are these days.
Saying you're a deadbeat because some company wants its money on the 27th and you get paid say on the 3rd of the month isn't making you a deadbeat, its paying it when you get money to pay it. A lot of companys set "arbitrary" dates as to when they want the cash, it doesn't mean thats when they will get it.
This would give them the right to post your name in public? I could smell a lawsuit big time, MY bills are MY business between the company and myself not for the whole world to know. I'm sure they lack the capacity to see that but hey, what's to be expected from a company with such low standards tehy would stoop to using FACEBOOK to try and "shame" people into paying.
They'd never see a dime from my if they did that and I would sue them for invading my privacy.