{"id":327081,"date":"2025-12-02T04:06:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/legal\/lessons-from-ratemds-v-bluler-bcca\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T04:06:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T04:06:33","slug":"lessons-from-ratemds-v-bluler-bcca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=327081","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from RateMDs v Bluler (BCCA)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body-5512229244905285167\">\n<p><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Online reviews and privacy claims: Lessons from RateMDs v Bluler (BCCA)\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AqmvwTs0qAA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><iframe allowtransparency=\"true\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" height=\"150\" loading=\"lazy\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=jpr26-19c466e-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Arial&amp;skin=1&amp;font-color=auto&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=7\" style=\"border: none; height: 150px; min-width: min(100%, 430px);\" title=\"Online reviews and privacy claims: Lessons from RateMDs v Bluler (BCCA)\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Can a doctor<br \/>\nclaim a privacy violation because a website creates a profile for them using<br \/>\npublic information, hosts anonymous reviews, and ranks them against their<br \/>\npeers?<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The British<br \/>\nColumbia Court of Appeal says no in <a href=\"https:\/\/canlii.ca\/t\/kfhmc\" target=\"_blank\">RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler, 2025 BCCA 329<\/a>. Let\u2019s walk through what happened \u2014 and what<br \/>\nthis means for privacy in Canada.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Let\u2019s start<br \/>\nwith the background to this case.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">RateMDs.com is<br \/>\na website where people can look up health professionals, read and post reviews,<br \/>\nand compare ratings. You\u2019ve probably seen it \u2014 you search for a physician, and<br \/>\nyou get their name, their contact information, their ratings, and often a long<br \/>\nlist of anonymous comments.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Dr. Ramona<br \/>\nBleuler, a BC physician, discovered that RateMDs had created a profile for her.<br \/>\nShe didn\u2019t ask for it. She didn\u2019t consent to it. And she couldn\u2019t remove it.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The platform<br \/>\nlisted her name, her professional contact information, a list of reviews from<br \/>\nanonymous users and a comparative ranking of doctors in her specialty and<br \/>\ngeographic region.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">RateMDs also<br \/>\noffers paid subscriptions that allow physicians to hide a limited number of<br \/>\nreviews. Dr. Bleuler wanted to start a class action on her own behalf and on<br \/>\nbehalf of other physicians in Canada who had listings on RateMDs.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Class actions \u2013<br \/>\nat least in Canada \u2013 have specific procedures, which require that the class<br \/>\naction be certified before it can go ahead. There are a number of things the<br \/>\ncourt must look at pursuant to the Class Proceedings Act, but the most<br \/>\nimportant question for our analysis here is whether the pleadings disclose a<br \/>\ncause of action. When you read the pleadings, and assume that the facts are<br \/>\ntrue and provable, is there an actual legal claim there? This is a screening<br \/>\nfunction to weed out any legal claims that are bound to fail, and the court is<br \/>\nonly supposed to examine the facts alleged in the statement of claim.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">This case<br \/>\nprincipally turns on whether the legal claims made by the representative<br \/>\nplaintiff are viable.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">So the<br \/>\nplaintiff sued RateMDs and its parent company under the provincial <i>Privacy<br \/>\nAct<\/i>. She said that by creating a profile for her, hosting reviews, and<br \/>\nranking her relative to her peers, RateMDs violated her privacy.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">She wasn\u2019t<br \/>\nclaiming that specific reviews contained private information. She wasn\u2019t<br \/>\narguing defamation. Her claim was broader: she said the <i>very act<\/i> of<br \/>\naggregating, hosting, and ranking health professionals without their consent<br \/>\nviolated privacy law. In particular, the plaintiff was relying on the statutory<br \/>\nprivacy torts created by the legislatures of British Columbia, Saskatchewan,<br \/>\nManitoba and Newfoundland. The proposed class would be physicians who reside in<br \/>\nthose provinces. The plaintiff also tried to rely on Quebec\u2019s privacy statute,<br \/>\nbut that part wasn\u2019t allowed to proceed in the lower court.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">She relied on<br \/>\ntwo sections of the <i>British Columbia Privacy Act<\/i>, and their equivalents<br \/>\nin the other provinces.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">First, <b>section<br \/>\n1<\/b>, which creates a tort \u2014 actionable without proof of damage \u2014 where a<br \/>\nperson \u2018wilfully and without claim of right\u2019 violates the privacy of another.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Violation of privacy actionable<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">1<span style=\"white-space: pre;\">\t<\/span>(1)<span style=\"white-space: pre;\">\t<\/span>It is a tort, actionable without proof of damage, for a person, wilfully and without a claim of right, to violate the privacy of another.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Second, <b>section<br \/>\n3(2)<\/b>, which prohibits the unauthorized use of someone\u2019s name or portrait<br \/>\nfor the purpose of advertising or promoting the sale of goods or services.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><b><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Unauthorized use of name or portrait of another<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">3<span style=\"white-space: pre;\">\t<\/span>(2)<span style=\"white-space: pre;\">\t<\/span>It is a tort, actionable without proof of damage, for a person to use the name or portrait of another for the purpose of advertising or promoting the sale of, or other trading in, property or services, unless that other, or a person entitled to consent on the other&#8217;s behalf, consents to the use for that purpose.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Her argument<br \/>\nwas that RateMDs is a commercial enterprise. The profiles draw traffic, the<br \/>\nreviews attract users, and the rankings keep people engaged. Because this<br \/>\ncommercial model depends on using doctors\u2019 names and contact information, she<br \/>\nsaid this amounted to both a privacy violation <i>and<\/i> commercial<br \/>\nexploitation of identity.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The BC Supreme<br \/>\nCourt agreed the case should go forward. The judge certified the class action.<br \/>\nI have to emphasize that this was only based on the pleadings and the court was<br \/>\nessentially saying that the claims looked viable, but that didn\u2019t mean the<br \/>\nplaintiffs would win at any eventual trial.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">But RateMDs<br \/>\nappealed. And at the Court of Appeal, everything changed.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court of<br \/>\nAppeal approached the case by asking the basic but crucial question:\u00a0<b>Even<br \/>\nassuming all the facts in the claim are true, is there a viable cause of action<br \/>\nunder the privacy statutes?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Again, this is<br \/>\na threshold question in class action certification. You don\u2019t look at evidence.<br \/>\nYou look at the pleadings. You ask whether the claim has a reasonable chance of<br \/>\nsuccess.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">A claim can be<br \/>\nnovel \u2014 that\u2019s okay. But if it\u2019s <i>doomed to fail<\/i>, the court must strike<br \/>\nit.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Here\u2019s the<br \/>\nheart of the Court of Appeal\u2019s reasoning:<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><b>At least for<br \/>\nthe purposes of a civil claim, privacy starts with identifying private<br \/>\ninformation. <\/b>And the claim failed at this starting point.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court of<br \/>\nAppeal said:<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;;\"><span style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\">\u25cf<span style=\"font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><!--[endif]-->A doctor\u2019s <i>name<\/i> is not private.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;;\"><span style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\">\u25cf<span style=\"font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><!--[endif]-->Professional <i>business contact information<\/i><br \/>\nis not private.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;;\"><span style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\">\u25cf<span style=\"font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><!--[endif]-->Reviews written by patients about a doctor\u2019s<br \/>\nprofessional services are not private.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 36pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18pt;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style=\"mso-bidi-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;; mso-fareast-font-family: &quot;Noto Sans Symbols&quot;;\"><span style=\"mso-list: Ignore;\">\u25cf<span style=\"font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><!--[endif]-->Rankings based on those reviews are not private.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court<br \/>\nemphasized that privacy law protects <i>reasonable expectations of privacy<\/i>.<br \/>\nAnd when someone is carrying out <b>professional, public-facing work<\/b>, the<br \/>\nthreshold for privacy protection is different.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court<br \/>\nrelied on earlier BC cases \u2014 including <i>Niemela v. Malamas<\/i> \u2014 which held<br \/>\nthat complaints about how a lawyer performs their work do not attract a<br \/>\nreasonable expectation of privacy. Professional reputation is not the same<br \/>\nthing as privacy.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The doctor<br \/>\ntried to frame her privacy right as a <i>right to control<\/i> how information<br \/>\nabout her was used. But the Court said: control only exists <b>if there\u2019s a<br \/>\nprivacy interest in the underlying information<\/b>. If the information is not<br \/>\nprivate, there is nothing to control. Or at least privacy torts don\u2019t leap in<br \/>\nto give you that control.\u00a0<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">For privacy<br \/>\nlawyers, this is an important clarification: <b>The BC Privacy Act protects<br \/>\nprivacy, not reputation, and not personal preference about the use of publicly<br \/>\navailable professional information.<\/b><o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court<br \/>\nconcluded that because there was no reasonable expectation of privacy in the<br \/>\ninformation posted on RateMDs, the privacy claim under section 1 was bound to<br \/>\nfail.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court also<br \/>\nnoted an important distinction: This case wasn\u2019t about whether any particular<br \/>\nreview contained sensitive information. The plaintiff expressly disclaimed that<br \/>\nargument. She said the content didn\u2019t matter \u2014 only the <i>existence<\/i> of the<br \/>\nprofile and the ranking system did.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court said<br \/>\nthat privacy law doesn\u2019t work that way. You can\u2019t claim a violation based on a<br \/>\nwebsite compiling publicly available information unless there\u2019s some private<br \/>\ncontent involved.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">So the broad<br \/>\ntheory \u2014 that creating a profile and ranking professionals without their<br \/>\nconsent is itself a privacy violation \u2014 was rejected. There would have to be<br \/>\nsomething more \u2026 and in this case, there was not.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The BC Supreme<br \/>\nCourt judge had relied in part on the rules governing how health professionals<br \/>\ncan advertise. For example, doctors can\u2019t use testimonials. They can\u2019t compare<br \/>\nthemselves to colleagues. The judge below thought this regulatory context<br \/>\ncreated a privacy interest.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Court of<br \/>\nAppeal disagreed.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Those rules<br \/>\nregulate doctors. They do not regulate <b>third-party websites<\/b>. They do not<br \/>\ncreate privacy rights. And they do not convert publicly available information<br \/>\ninto private information. The Court of Appeal wrote at paragraph 98: \u201cHowever,<br \/>\nthe interest of provincial regulators in restricting advertising by health<br \/>\nprofessionals has no obvious connection to the respondent\u2019s asserted privacy<br \/>\ninterest. The regulatory concern is to protect the public, not to protect the<br \/>\nprivacy of health professionals. That regulatory interest has nothing to do<br \/>\nwith the plaintiff\u2019s reasonable expectation of privacy.\u201d<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">So the<br \/>\nregulatory framework could not be used to manufacture a privacy interest where<br \/>\nnone otherwise existed.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Next, the Court<br \/>\nexamined the claim under <b>section 3(2)<\/b> \u2014 unauthorized use of name or<br \/>\nportrait for advertising.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">This is the<br \/>\n\u2018misappropriation of personality\u2019 tort. It typically covers: (a) using<br \/>\nsomeone\u2019s name or image in an ad, (b) using a person\u2019s likeness to promote<br \/>\ngoods or services or (c) endorsements without consent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>RateMDs wasn\u2019t using doctors\u2019 identities to <i>advertise<\/i> or <i>sell<\/i><br \/>\nanything in the sense required by the statute. It was running a platform where<br \/>\nreviews are posted and accessed. Running a commercial website that uses names<br \/>\nin this manner doesn\u2019t cut it. That\u2019s not the kind of commercial exploitation section<br \/>\n3(2) is meant to capture.<o:p\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">So the Court of<br \/>\nAppeal found that the claim under section 3(2) was also doomed to fail.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">With both<br \/>\nprivacy causes of action rejected at the threshold stage, the Court of Appeal<br \/>\nallowed the appeal, set aside the certification order and dismissed the action<br \/>\nentirely. This was a complete win for RateMDs.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">What are the<br \/>\nbroader implications?<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">First, the<br \/>\nCourt drew a clear boundary around privacy law: <b>You can\u2019t use privacy torts<br \/>\nto challenge the existence of a professional review platform.<\/b><o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Second, the<br \/>\ndecision reinforces that privacy torts require a <b>reasonable expectation of<br \/>\nprivacy<\/b> in identifiable, specific information. That expectation must be<br \/>\ngrounded in: (a) the nature of the information, (b) the specific context, and<br \/>\n(c) established privacy norms. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>Third, platforms that rely on <b>publicly available, professional information<\/b><br \/>\nto generate profiles or rankings are, at least under BC\u2019s statute and its<br \/>\nequivalents, unlikely to face successful privacy claims \u2014 unless they publish<br \/>\nactually private or sensitive data.<o:p\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Fourth, the<br \/>\nCourt left open \u2014 deliberately \u2014 that if a review leaks confidential<br \/>\ninformation or medical information, <i>that<\/i> could be a privacy violation.<br \/>\nBut that\u2019s not what this case was about.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Finally, this<br \/>\nis a reminder that privacy law is not a catch-all remedy for online<br \/>\nreputational harm. Other legal avenues may exist such as defamation \u2014 but the<br \/>\nprivacy tort has a defined scope.<o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">A last thing to<br \/>\nnote, which is important, is that this decision was made in the context of<br \/>\nprivacy torts \u2013 civil claims for invasion of privacy or use of image and<br \/>\nlikeness. Under our more general privacy statutes, such as the Personal<br \/>\nInformation Protection and Electronic Documents Act, whether information is<br \/>\n\u201cpersonal information\u201d \u2013 and thus whether the statute applies to it \u2013 does not<br \/>\ndepend on whether the information is \u201cprivate\u201d or the \u201cconfidentiality\u201d of the<br \/>\ninformation. <o:p\/><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">A person\u2019s name<br \/>\nis subject to those laws, but may simply be less \u201csensitive\u201d. Though a lot of<br \/>\nthe same principles may be in play, one should always be cautious about<br \/>\nassuming that what a court says in the tort context will apply directly to our<br \/>\ncommercial privacy laws. <\/span><o:p\/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Can a doctor claim a privacy violation because a website creates a profile for them using public information, hosts anonymous reviews, and ranks them against their peers? The British Columbia Court of Appeal says no in RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler, 2025 BCCA 329. Let\u2019s walk through what happened \u2014 and what this means for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":327082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[153574,153573,5200,153572],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-327081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-legal","tag-bcca","tag-bluler","tag-lessons","tag-ratemds"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Lessons from RateMDs v Bluler (BCCA) - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=327081\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons from RateMDs v Bluler (BCCA) - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 Can a doctor claim a privacy violation because a website creates a profile for them using public information, hosts anonymous reviews, and ranks them against their peers? The British Columbia Court of Appeal says no in RateMDs Inc. v. Bleuler, 2025 BCCA 329. 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