Ask a Legal Expert – PIPEDA

One of the key tools to objectively assess claimants in the life and health industry is through the means of covert surveillance. Surveillance is a tool used both in the adjudication of the claim and after litigation in the defence strategy. Prior to PIPEDA coming into force I would go out on a limb and say surveillance was probably more widely and regularly used by insurers. With PIPEDA came a greater scrutiny of insurer’s internal adjudication practices and the start of a number of challenges faced by private investigators with the Privacy Commissioner. At the insurer level, more emphasis was placed on ensuring the file had conflicting medical evidence or some foundation to merit the level of intrusion into a person’s private affairs. Between 2004 and 2009, the Commissioner’s