Making Drivers Wear Badge Displaying ID Number Isn’t a Privacy Violation

The union cried foul when the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) implemented a new VISION bus management system requiring drivers to wear badges displaying their operator ID number. The Ontario arbitrator agreed that TTC management didn’t have carte blanche discretion to implement any management system it saw fit and that it had to respect employees’ right to consent to disclosure of their “personal information” under privacy laws. But, the arbitrator reasoned, operator ID numbers didn’t count as “personal information” because passengers couldn’t use the numbers, without other information, to identify the individual driver associated with the number. And since the privacy protections didn’t apply, it tossed the grievance [Toronto Transit Commission v Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113, 2021 CanLII 2097 (ON LA), January 18, 2021].