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Notch another one for the consumer.

Professor Geist worries also because the TPP requires that parties allow the cross-border transfer of business data, including personal data. This, of course, is now the norm and international business would be severely hampered without the power to make such transfers. But lest anyone fear that this will cramp Canada’s ability to protect sensitive data, the rule does not apply to data held by or contracted for by governments, thus saving British Columbia’s and Nova Scotia’s existing initiatives regarding the processing of health information, and allowing others to be formed. It is also subject to any policy a party may establish for any “legitimate policy purpose,” provided it doesn’t constitute a means of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or disguised restriction on trade, and does not impose restrictions greater than are required to achieve the objective.

By setting out principles rather than dictating legislative text, the TPP preserves a wide scope to governments to mould law and policy to their own circumstances. Preserved too is the ability of any government or person to try to persuade a party to take one legislative approach or another. The field remains open to convince, for instance, Vietnam or Brunei to adopt CASL; but to expect the TPP to set out detailed legislative policies where no international consensus is yet formed is to forget that it is a trade treaty, not a novel IP/electronic commerce initiative. Indeed it is remarkable what a forward-looking treaty it is, given the tight constraints of trade negotiation. Chapter 14 right off establishes non-discriminatory treatment of digital products, and a prohibition on customs duties on them, but also does so much more to create a shared and safe electronic commerce environment.