David Canton of the London Free Press highlights the Canadian advantage for the outsourcing of services. He suggests, and I agreee, that Canada's privacy laws are a competitive advantage:

CANOE -- CNEWS - Tech News David Canton: Outsource solution right here:

"...Canada has a culture that respects confidentiality and privacy and abides by contractual requirements.

Canada's privacy legislation is among the best in the world. Some countries where offshore work is sent have no privacy legislation whatsoever. Indeed, Canadian privacy legislation is more wide-ranging than that in the U.S., where privacy legislation only affects specific industry sectors.

Canadian companies can use these advantages to market their services to U.S. firms wanting to outsource. This will be most effective for sensitive tasks where the outsourcer's intellectual property will be exposed or where the Canadian company will be privy to personal information about the outsourcer's customers.

That could arise, for example, in task requiring the Canadian company to have copies of the outsourcer's software source code, or in a call centre situation where the Canadian company is in contact with customers of the U.S. firm.

Canadian companies should adopt privacy policies that comply with federal privacy legislation (PIPEDA) or relevant provincial legislation. Their standard contracts should make it clear they will respect the privacy of personal information of outsourcer's customers -- for example, that they will not use it for any purposes other than as instructed by the outsourcer and will not disclose it to third parties. "

Within Canada, the Atlantic region has all this and more.

Labels: information breaches, privacy