Protecting Personal Information

This paper looks at Nova Scotia's Personal Information International Disclosure Protection Act (PIIDPA), a piece of legislation that was specifically designed to protect Nova Scotia's citizens from having their personal information accessed by foreign governments. This is a direct reaction to new powers the United States government has given itself, through the USA Patriot Act, in collecting information to protect Americans from terrorism. The main thesis of my paper will be to determine whether this piece of legislation is an effective piece of public policy, asking the question: Does Nova Scotia, through PIIDPA, have the ability to protect Nova Scotians from having their personal information accessed by foreign governments? Using a policy framework designed by political scientists Paul Sabatier and Daniel Mazmanian (1980) to analyse policy effectiveness I will determine whether PIIDPA is an act that will effectively do what it was created to do, or whether it will face problems in achieving those goals.