Privacy Commissioner investigating the province’s liquor store pilot project

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The Information and Privacy Commissioner is investigating a pilot project announced by the province earlier this week.

The Alberta Government had a press conference on Monday to talk about ID scanning technology being used at liquor stores before allowing customers to enter the premises.

The stores were the technology is to be tested is owned by Alcanna Inc. while Patronscan is the company with the scanning technology.

In a statement, the OIPC says, “The investigation will determine whether the use of this technology in liquor stores is compliant with the Personal Information Protection Act, Alberta’s private sector privacy law. Due to a variety of factors, a timeline for this investigation is not known and a public report may be issued.”

In a text message to the Trending 55 Newsroom, Office of the Justice Minister and Solicitor General Press Secretary, Jonah Mozeson issued the following statement.

“Our government is concerned with the dramatic increase in liquor store thefts across the province and especially in Edmonton.  Our government has established a working group to look into actions to deter liquor store thefts, including security features for stores, enforcement strategies and legal measures, as well as steps taken in other jurisdictions.

Specific measures, including ID scanning, are the responsibility of the relevant private sector actors and not the government, which does not own or operate the scanners. Obviously, measures that do not comply with the law will not be part of any action the government may take. That said, the AGLC confirmed that liquor licensees have successfully employed similar ID scanning measures for more than a decade.”

– Kenny Trenton, Trending 55 Newsroom

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