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Province’s Liquor Control Board to stop collecting the personal information
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Ontario’s privacy commissioner has ordered the province’s Liquor Control Board to stop collecting the personal information of spirit, beer, and wine club members and to destroy all such data obtained thus far.
Commissioner Ann Cavoukian’s ruling comes after a complaint received by her office from the Vin de Garde wine club in Toronto, which has made purchases through the board’s Private Ordering Department for years. The LCBO started demanding last March that Vin de Garde provide the personal information of club members who are doing the ordering.
“They basically asked for a name to every bottle,” said Warren Porter, president of Vin de Garde, which has hundreds of members in Ottawa. “We’re very happy with the decision and applaud the commissioner for doing it while facing strong opposition.”
He also noted that the board’s demand would have increased the club’s paperwork by “a hundredfold,” prompting Vin de Garde to suspend operations last year. Porter hopes the club will resume activities soon.
The LCBO argued that the information was necessary to process transactions, facilitate recalls, enable audits and prevent fraud. The Ministry of Finance, to which the LCBO is answerable, backed this position. The liquor board also noted that the collection of personal data has been common practice for years, and that Vin de Garde should have been asked to comply much earlier than last March.
Cavoukian writes in her ruling that she doesn’t find the board’s arguments very convincing and concludes that the board doesn’t have to collect personal information to do its job.
“The LCBO falls under our provincial privacy laws,” said Brian Beamish, Cavoukian’s assistant commissioner, “which means that it has to prove that the collecting of names and contacts isn’t just helpful to what they do, but necessary.”
Porter said Vin de Garde members’ names and addresses, along with their consumption habits, could be seen by a number of groups, including wine agents and delivery companies. He said club lawyers tried to work things out with the LCBO, but the two sides failed to reach an agreement.
“We then thought it was necessary to file a complaint,” Porter said.
The LCBO has until May 28 to prove that it has complied with Cavoukian’s orders. Spokeswoman Heather MacGregor said in an email that the board was planning its next steps.
“During this time,” MacGregor wrote, “we are temporarily suspending new wine club orders.”