Richard Simpson

Richard Simpson is the Director General, Electronic Commerce with Industry Canada, and is responsible for the development and implementation of policies relating to the online economy. In this capacity, he has played a central role in designing Canada’s policies on electronic commerce at the domestic and international levels.  His office has the overall policy responsibility for Canada’s private sector privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and for the regulations made pursuant to Part 1 of the Act, including the designation of provincial laws as “substantially similar”.  In addition to privacy legislation and policy, the Electronic Commerce Branch also has the primary responsibility within the federal government for policies regarding spam and other related threats to Internet-based commerce.  

One of his major responsibilities is the development of strategies to promote the growth of electronic commerce and e-business, both in Canada and internationally. In this regard, he played a leading role in the work of the Canadian e-Business Initiative (CeBI) and in organizing the National Conference on the e-Economy, which took place in Ottawa in September 2004. He has also played a key role within the OECD, the FTAA, the WTO, ITU and other international bodies dealing with aspects of electronic commerce, and in the work of the G8 DOT Force, the UN Information and Communications(ICT) Task Force, and the Commonwealth’s Expert Group on Information Technology. He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of Commonwealth Connects, the Commonwealth’s flagship initiative in the area of ICT for Development, and was elected Chair of the OECD’s senior level Committee on Information, Computers and Communications Policy (ICCP) in 2007.

Mr. Simpson has worked in the field of communications and information technology since 1975, occupying senior executive positions at both the national and international levels.