Tim Hortons App Found to Have Illegally Collected Location Data ⇥ theglobeandmail.com

Susan Krashinsky Robertson and Colin Freeze, the Globe and Mail:

Canada’s largest fast-food chain violated privacy laws by tracking people who used its app, gathering their location data hundreds of times a day — even when the app was not in use.

That is the result of a joint investigation by Canadian privacy officials into Tim Hortons’ surveillance of customers through an app installed on millions of mobile phones in this country. But while the coffee-and-doughnuts chain owned by Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International Inc. will have to make changes to its privacy practices, it faces no fines or financial penalties for the breach.

This is the most Canadian story imaginable. Tim Hortons, our crappy coffee franchise that has somehow usurped any semblance of national identity, collected the location information of millions of the country’s most committed customers every few minutes, and its penalty is to say sorry. Embarrassing.