The federal government is set to introduce new legislation aimed at better safeguarding the privacy of Canadians in the digital era.

The bill could be tabled as early as this week and follows repeated calls from federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien to modernize Canada’s aging privacy laws.

Therrien says Canada’s information-protection laws lag behind many others around the world.

He’s called for new authority to issue binding orders to companies and to levy fines for non-compliance with privacy legislation.

He also wants powers to inspect the information-handling practices of organizations.