Some of those laws date to the 1980s and the federal privacy commissioner, among others, has been calling for a 21st century update. But while Canada lags behind Europe in this area, it’s still well ahead of the United States.

The political party exemption came about in part because of a parliamentary tradition of not giving bureaucrats or outside bodies control over a party’s affairs. I called Michael Pal, an assistant law professor at the University of Ottawa who studies election laws and related issues like voter suppression, and asked if it’s time for a change.

“Every other sector is covered by privacy laws but political parties,” he said. “They are all using data so I don’t think there is a good argument about why they should be under privacy rules.”

As for concerns about encroaching on Parliament, Professor Pal isn’t buying that either. He noted that parties were already “heavily regulated” through Elections Canada and election fund-raising laws.

So what’s a Facebook user to do now? My colleague Brian X. Chen, who writes about consumer technology, has offered some guidance on minimizing privacy risks on Facebook, although his overall take on the situation facing Facebook users is a little discouraging: