Canada Privacy Watchdog Takes Google to Federal Court

Canada's Privacy Watchdog Asks Federal Court to Order Google to De-List Search Results

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has filed a notice of application in Federal Court asking it to order Google to comply with a 2025 finding that the company violated federal privacy law. No court has ruled, and Google has not been found liable by any court.

Information last verified on September 2, 2026.

Status: The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) filed a notice of application in Federal Court on August 26, 2026, and announced the filing on August 28, 2026. No hearing date has been announced, no court has ruled, and Google has not been found liable by any court, as of September 2, 2026. This is a developing story.

Jurisdiction: This article covers Canadian federal private-sector privacy law (PIPEDA) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. It does not describe the European Union's right to be forgotten under the GDPR or United States law, which work differently.

What Happened

On August 26, 2026, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), which administers Canada's federal privacy laws, filed a notice of application with the Federal Court in connection with its search-engine de-listing investigation into Google. The OPC's own news release states it "has filed an application with the Federal Court seeking an order to implement its recommendations following an investigation into Google that concluded August 27, 2025."

That investigation, published as PIPEDA Findings #2025-002, began with a complaint an individual filed after Google continued to display years-old news articles about a criminal charge whenever the person's name was searched. The charge, which involved an allegation the complainant had not disclosed their HIV status to a partner, was stayed by the Crown shortly after it was laid. The complainant told the OPC the search results caused physical assault, lost employment opportunities, and lasting social stigma.

The OPC examined two separate questions. It found no violation of PIPEDA's accuracy principle, because that obligation covers only whether a search snippet accurately reflects the linked article, not whether the underlying article is itself accurate. It did find a violation of subsection 5(3) of PIPEDA, the "appropriate purposes" provision, concluding that the significant harm to the complainant's safety and dignity from continuing to surface the articles for a name search outweighed the limited public interest in keeping those results easy to find. The OPC recommended that Google de-list the specific articles from search results generated by a search of the complainant's name only, not remove them from Google's index generally.

Google declined to comply. According to the OPC, Google said "direction and guidance from the courts on several important questions is required before it would be appropriate for news articles to be de-listed from search results," including whether PIPEDA creates such a right at all, the circumstances in which it would apply, and whether ordering de-listing would violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms' guarantee of freedom of expression. The OPC classified the complaint as "well-founded (and unresolved)."

The Commissioner has no power to force compliance on its own, so a Federal Court application was the only way to attempt to make the recommendation enforceable. This is also not the first time a dispute over Google's search index has reached the Federal Court. In 2018, after Google argued its search engine fell outside PIPEDA's reach entirely, the OPC asked the Federal Court to resolve that jurisdictional question. The Federal Court ruled in 2021 that PIPEDA does apply to Google's search engine and rejected a journalism exemption; the Federal Court of Appeal upheld that ruling in 2023. Those earlier proceedings settled only whether PIPEDA applies to Google at all, not whether de-listing is required in this complainant's specific case.

What the Law Actually Says

PIPEDA, Canada's federal private-sector privacy law, sets out an enforcement path that runs through complaints rather than direct penalties. Under section 11, an individual may file a written complaint with the Commissioner, or the Commissioner may open one directly. Section 12 requires the Commissioner to investigate unless narrow exceptions apply. Section 13 requires the Commissioner to prepare a report of findings, generally within one year of the complaint, setting out the findings and recommendations and the recourse available under section 14.

That report is where the Commissioner's own authority ends. PIPEDA gives the Commissioner no power to order an organization to do anything. Section 14(1) gives the complainant the right to apply to the Federal Court for a hearing after receiving the report, and section 14(2) sets the deadline: the application must be filed within one year after the report is sent, or within a longer period the Court allows. Section 15 extends that same route to the Commissioner, but only for a complaint the Commissioner did not initiate. Under section 15(a), the Commissioner may apply to the Court within the time limit set by section 14 if the Commissioner has the complainant's consent. Sections 15(b) and 15(c) carry no consent requirement and instead let the Commissioner appear on behalf of a complainant who has applied, or, with leave of the Court, appear as a party. The OPC's public materials do not name the paragraph it relied on here, although section 15(a) is the only one that lets the Commissioner start an application of its own.

If the Federal Court agrees with the Commissioner's findings, section 16 lets it order an organization to correct its practices, order it to publish notice of what it has done or plans to do, and award damages to the complainant, including damages for humiliation. Section 17 requires an application under sections 14 or 15 to be heard "without delay and in a summary way" unless the Court decides otherwise, and allows the Court to take steps such as hearing evidence ex parte or in camera to protect sensitive material. None of that has happened yet in this matter. The OPC's 2025 finding is a recommendation the Court can adopt, modify, or reject; it does not bind Google on its own, and it will not unless and until the Federal Court says so.

It is worth being precise about the underlying right, because it is easy to conflate with a broader concept. PIPEDA contains no standalone provision creating a right to be forgotten or a general right to erasure. The OPC's finding rests entirely on subsection 5(3), which requires an organization to collect, use, or disclose personal information "only for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances." The Commissioner concluded that continuing to display these specific articles for a search of the complainant's name failed that appropriateness test on these specific facts, weighing factors including whether the person is a public figure, whether the information touches ongoing public debate, and how much time has passed. That is a fact-specific mechanism built on a general appropriateness test rather than on an express erasure provision, unlike the EU's right to be forgotten, which the Court of Justice of the European Union recognized as a more general balancing right against search engines under EU data protection law. PIPEDA also governs only the private sector; complaints against federal government institutions instead fall under the separate Privacy Act.

What Happens Next

The application now moves through the Federal Court's process for a section 14/15 hearing. The OPC's filing sets out its position and the relief it wants; Google is expected to respond with its grounds for opposing the application, likely including the same questions it raised when it declined to comply: whether PIPEDA creates a de-listing right at all, what its limits are, and whether it can survive Charter scrutiny. Section 17 directs the Court to hold what it calls a summary hearing, meaning the process is meant to move without the full discovery and trial procedures typical of ordinary civil litigation, though the Court retains discretion to depart from that if it decides the case requires it.

As of this writing, no Federal Court docket or file number for this specific application was located in the public record, and the OPC's own release does not include one. No hearing date has been announced. If the Court rules for the OPC, section 16 lets it order Google to correct its practices, order Google to publish notice of the steps it has taken, and award damages to the complainant, including damages for humiliation. Section 16 frames those remedies as additions to any other remedy the Court may give, and its damages power runs to the complainant rather than to a wider group. If the Court rules for Google, the 2025 recommendation remains unenforceable against Google in this matter unless a further appeal changes that outcome.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

This filing matters less for what it decides, since as of today it decides nothing, than for what it tests. Canada's private-sector privacy statute has never had its de-listing theory tested in front of a judge. The Commissioner's 2025 finding was a considered conclusion reached after a formal investigation, built on a specific balancing test under subsection 5(3), but Google's refusal to comply meant that conclusion carried no binding force for a full year. The Federal Court application is the mechanism PIPEDA actually provides for turning an unenforced recommendation into something a company must follow, and notably it is the only such mechanism, since the Commissioner cannot skip straight to issuing an order.

The case also sits inside a structural pattern worth naming without predicting how this particular dispute comes out. The Commissioner's lack of order-making power under PIPEDA is a known feature of the current statute, and it is the direct reason this dispute needed a second round of Federal Court litigation after an earlier round, running from 2018 to 2023, already settled that PIPEDA applies to Google's search engine at all. Whatever the Federal Court eventually decides on the de-listing question itself, that structural fact does not change: under the law as it exists today, an OPC finding against a company the size of Google carries legal force only once a court agrees to give it that force.

Readers should also be careful not to import assumptions from the European Union's right to be forgotten into this Canadian case. The claim here rests on a specific set of facts, a specific statutory balancing test, and one complainant, decided under a different statute with different remedies available to the court. Nothing about this filing establishes a general Canadian right to erasure, and the Federal Court has not yet indicated whether it will accept the Commissioner's legal theory at all.

How This Affects You

Nothing in this filing changes what a person in Canada can do today about search results concerning themselves. The complaint process under PIPEDA remains available: an individual who believes a search engine, or any other private-sector organization, is displaying their personal information for a purpose a reasonable person would not consider appropriate can file a written complaint with the OPC, which will investigate and, if warranted, issue a report of findings and a recommendation. For a broader look at how this fits together, see our overview of Canada's data privacy laws.

What this case demonstrates is that filing a complaint and obtaining a favourable finding are not the end of the process if the organization disputes it. The Commissioner can investigate, conclude a violation occurred, and recommend a specific fix, and none of that binds the organization unless the Commissioner or the complainant then applies to the Federal Court within the one-year window and the Court agrees with the finding. That is a longer and less certain path than a regulator's finding might suggest at first glance, and it is worth understanding before assuming that a favourable OPC finding by itself changes what appears in a search result.

This article describes a general legal framework and a specific pending case. It is not guidance for what any individual reader should do about their own search results, and nothing here should be read as legal advice for a specific situation.

This article summarizes a pending Canadian federal court application and the public record concerning Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) as of September 2, 2026. It is general information, not legal advice, and it does not address every circumstance. Laws and pending litigation can change. Anyone with a specific concern about their own personal information or a privacy complaint should consult a lawyer licensed in the relevant Canadian province or territory.

Related articles

• How PIPEDA Works
• Canada Data Privacy Laws
• Privacy Act Canada (Public Sector)
• EU Right to Be Forgotten

Last updated: 2026-09-02. This is a developing story; details verified as of 2026-09-02.