Governance Policies and Practices
Plain English Translation
Organizations must establish, implement, and publish internal policies and procedures to protect personal information throughout its lifecycle, fulfilling Quebec Law 25 compliance. This includes defining rules for data retention, secure destruction, employee roles, and a clear process for handling privacy complaints. Detailed information about these practices must be published transparently in simple, clear language.
Technical Implementation
Use the tabs below to select your organization size.
Required Actions (startup)
- Draft a basic data management policy covering data collection, retention, and deletion.
- Appoint a person in charge of personal information and document their approval of policies.
- Publish a simple, clear privacy policy on the company website outlining these practices.
Required Actions (scaleup)
- Formalize roles and responsibilities for personal information handling across different departments.
- Implement a structured process and logging system for handling privacy complaints and data subject requests.
- Define specific retention periods and manual destruction schedules for different data types.
Required Actions (enterprise)
- Integrate governance policies into an enterprise-wide privacy management framework.
- Implement automated data lifecycle management tools for retention and secure erasure.
- Conduct regular audits of the governance practices to ensure proportionality to the scope of activities.
To meet Quebec Law 25 governance policies and practices requirements, organizations must establish and implement proportionate rules that ensure the protection of personal data. This includes a framework for data keeping and destruction, defined personnel roles, and a documented complaint processing procedure.
When evaluating what is required in a Loi 25 privacy governance policy, the organization must cover the entire data lifecycle. This means specifically defining rules for retention, implementing a Law 25 secure destruction policy for personal information, and delineating staff roles at every stage.
Organizations must establish clear schedules determining how long data is kept to fulfill its original purpose, fulfilling Law 25 data retention and destruction mandates. Utilizing a Quebec Law 25 retention schedule policy template can help outline the secure processes to either destroy or anonymize the data once that purpose is achieved. Tools like WatchDog Security's Policy Management can help maintain controlled versions of retention schedules and related procedures, ensuring updates are approved and communicated consistently.
The person in charge of the protection of personal information must formally approve the governance practices. Building a resilient Loi 25 privacy governance program for CISOs and privacy officers ensures policies remain proportionate to the enterprise's activities over time.
Organizations must clearly document Loi 25 roles and responsibilities for personal information protection for all personnel members. This ensures internal accountability from the initial collection of data through to eventual data destruction.
The governance practices must provide a formal process for dealing with privacy inquiries to meet Law 25 complaint handling process requirements. It should cover how individuals can submit complaints, how the organization will investigate them, and the timelines for resolution. Tools like WatchDog Security's Compliance Center can help track complaints as governed workflow items with assigned owners and time-based follow-ups, preserving evidence of timely handling.
Yes, to satisfy Law 25 policies and practices publication requirements, detailed information about these governance frameworks must be published in simple and clear language on the enterprise's website. If there is no website, it must be made available by any other appropriate means.
While learning how to create a Law 25 personal information lifecycle policy is the first step, these documents should be reviewed at least annually. This regular cadence ensures they remain proportionate to the evolving nature and scope of the enterprise's activities.
To prove ongoing Quebec Law 25 compliance, teams must keep approved policies, published public privacy notices, complaint logs, and detailed records showing how to document Loi 25 personal information lifecycle management during regulatory audits. Tools like WatchDog Security's Compliance Center can help centralize these artifacts and link them to control requirements, while WatchDog Security's Policy Management can help preserve approvals and historical versions as audit evidence.
A robust Loi 25 privacy policy establishes the foundational rules and staff roles for data protection, which integrates directly with incident response protocols required under Section 3.5. Proper governance ensures personnel know their responsibilities immediately if a confidentiality incident occurs.
Governance policies fail when they stay as static documents instead of being translated into owned tasks, tracked reviews, and consistent evidence across teams. Tools like WatchDog Security's Compliance Center can help map Law 25 requirements to specific policy artifacts, assign owners for retention and complaint processes, and support periodic review workflows with an auditable trail of approvals and updates.
Retention schedules often drift when new applications and data stores are added without being mapped to the lifecycle rules, creating over-retention and inconsistent deletion practices. Tools like WatchDog Security's Asset Inventory can help maintain an accurate view of systems and SaaS handling personal information, while WatchDog Security's Policy Management can help manage retention policy versions and acknowledgements so teams apply the same rules across the environment.
"Any person carrying on an enterprise must establish and implement governance policies and practices regarding personal information that ensure the protection of such information. Such policies and practices must, in particular, provide a framework for the keeping and destruction of the information, define the roles and responsibilities of the members of its personnel throughout the life cycle of the information and provide a process for dealing with complaints regarding the protection of the information. The policies and practices must also be proportionate to the nature and scope of the enterprise’s activities and be approved by the person in charge of the protection of personal information. Detailed information about those policies and practices, in particular as concerns the content required under the first paragraph, must be published in simple and clear language on the enterprise’s website or, if the enterprise does not have a website, made available by any other appropriate means."
| Version | Date | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0.0 | 2026-02-23 | WatchDog Security GRC Team | Initial publication |
