Alberta

Alberta

Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Alberta (OIPC Alberta)

The OIPC's mandate is to advocate for the access and privacy rights of Albertans and ensure public bodies, health custodians, and private-sector organizations uphold those rights, through fair, independent, and impartial review. It is a single combined office — there is no separate access-only, privacy-only, or health-privacy-only regulator. The Commissioner reviews access-to-information requests, investigates privacy complaints, assesses privacy impact assessments, conducts inquiries, issues orders, and educates organizations and the public on their access and privacy obligations, operating independently of government.

Laws and regulations administered:

  • Access to Information Act (ATIA) — in force since June 11, 2025, governing public-body access requests. It replaced the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), which was repealed the same day but may still apply in limited, time-bound transitional circumstances.
  • Protection of Privacy Act (POPA) — in force since June 11, 2025, governing public bodies' collection, use, and disclosure of personal information. Also split out of the former FOIP Act.
  • Health Information Act (HIA) — governs health custodians' handling of health records.
  • Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) — governs private-sector organizations' collection, use, and disclosure of personal information, in place of PIPEDA.

The Commissioner also has review authority over the Access to Motor Vehicle Information Regulation (AMVIR).

Notable recent developments

  • Alberta's split of FOIP into the separate ATIA (access) and POPA (privacy) statutes in June 2025 is a significant structural change from most other provinces, which retain a single combined access-and-privacy act.
  • In May 2025, the Alberta Court of King's Bench (in the Clearview AI matter) struck down restrictive wording in the PIPA Regulation's definition of "publicly available information" as an unconstitutional limit on freedom of expression — though Clearview's surveillance purpose was still found unreasonable under PIPA.
  • A Standing Committee statutory review of PIPA, completed in February 2025, issued 12 recommendations; the government ran public consultation in early 2026 and was conducting further stakeholder engagement with the OIPC toward possible PIPA amendments as of spring 2026.

Other provincial legislation of note

  • Bill 31, Red Tape Reduction Statutes Amendment Act, 2026 — an omnibus bill; the privacy-relevant provision amends the Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act to let the AGLC sell and disclose PlayAlberta customer personal information notwithstanding POPA's general prohibition on public bodies selling personal information, ahead of Alberta's regulated online gambling market opening in July 2026.

This bill is contested. Minister of Service Alberta Dale Nally said AGLC could not sell the Play Alberta platform and its customer data under existing law without the exemption, stressed it is narrow (limited to Crown corporations), and said customers would get notice and an opt-out before any sale; AGLC said no immediate sale is planned. Alberta's Information and Privacy Commissioner, Diane McLeod-McKay, called it a "concerning precedent" — the first instance under POPA of personal information collected by a public body being sold to a private organization — and asked what Albertans should conclude "if a clearly stated prohibition in POPA is nullified through another piece of legislation," noting she had flagged this exact risk to government back in 2024.

  • Bill 23, Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2026 — received Royal Assent April 16, 2026. Amends the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act to ban creating, distributing, or publishing election-related "deepfakes" of party leaders, candidates, MLAs, or election officials that are likely or intended to mislead electors, with no satire or parody exemption, and penalties up to $10,000 per day for individuals and $100,000 per day for entities.

This bill is only lightly contested. Justice Minister Mickey Amery framed it around the difficulty of distinguishing real from fabricated media as deepfake technology improves, and as protecting fair elections; opposition parties gave it tentative support rather than opposing it outright. The narrower critique — from commentary rather than a named advocacy organization — is that the lack of a satire/parody carve-out and the vague "likely to mislead" standard could chill legitimate political speech.

Pending and proposed legislation

  • In August 2025, the OIPC published a report recommending that Alberta enact a standalone AI law to work alongside an updated PIPA and HIA, aiming to balance innovation with privacy and rights protection. No AI-specific bill has been introduced in the Alberta legislature as of this writing — this remains at the recommendation and consultation stage only.
  • Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish announced in March 2026 that the government intends to introduce legislation, targeted for fall 2026, letting victims sue people who share non-consensual deepfake intimate images or fabricated audio recordings. No bill number exists yet.