Telecom Decision CRTC 2003-33-1

Considering all of the above, the Commission directs Canadian carriers to modify their existing tariffs, customer contracts and other arrangements to reflect the change from written consent to express consent, and the list of acceptable methods of obtaining express consent, as demonstrated in the following example. Those Canadian carriers whose existing tariffs contain additional circumstances under which disclosure is permitted, may retain those circumstances in their proposed tariffs.

Unless a customer provides express consent or disclosure is pursuant to a legal power, all information kept by the company regarding the customer, other than the customer's name, address and listed telephone number, is confidential and may not be disclosed by the company to anyone other than:

• the customer;
• a person who, in the reasonable judgement of the company, is seeking the information as an agent of the customer;
• another telephone company, provided the information is required for the efficient and cost-effective provision of telephone service and disclosure is made on a confidential basis with the information to be used only for that purpose;
• a company involved in supplying the customer with telephone or telephone directory related services, provided the information is required for that purpose and disclosure is made on a confidential basis with the information to be used only for that purpose; or
• an agent retained by the company in the collection of the customer's account, provided the information is required for and is to be used only for that purpose.

Express consent may be taken to be given by a customer where the customer provides:

• written consent;
• oral confirmation verified by an independent third-party;
• electronic confirmation through the use of a toll-free number;
  or
• electronic confirmation via the Internet.