On May 15, 2024, the Québec government published the final version of the Regulation respecting the anonymization of personal information (Regulations).
The Regulations do not differ substantially from the draft version published in December 2023 [downloadable comparison copy to the draft version is below].
However, there are some changes, most of which relax the obligations on organizations. The Regulations still focus on stages of anonymization (see our previous blog post, here, for a more detailed description of the stages):
Stage I: Activities that must be done prior to anonymization
Stage II: The process of anonymization
Stage III: Activities that must be done subsequent to the process of anonymization
Notably, in Stage I, the pre-anonymizations re-identification risk assessment no longer requires organizations to consider the risk “of other information available,” instead requiring only that the organization assess the risk “of other reasonably available information.” This addresses concerns raised by some that the initial language created an impossible standard.
Similarly, the Stage II requirement to establish “protection and security measures to reduce re-identification risks” is now a requirement to establish “reasonable” protection and security measures to reduce such risks.
As part of Stage III, organizations are no longer required to “regularly” assess the information it has anonymized, in favour of “periodically” conducting such assessments. How frequent these assessments must be performed is now driven by the risks previously identified in the initial re-identification risk analysis.
The Stage III record keeping requirements in section 9 now no longer require a summary of the results of the re-identification risk analysis.
The Regulations will come into force 15 days after publication, with the exception of the record keeping requirements in section 9, which will come into force January 1, 2025.
We have provided a blackline comparison of the draft regulations versus the final Regulations. You can download it here.
