The Privacy Act, the federal privacy law requiring federal government bodies to respect individual privacy rights, hasn’t been substantially updated since 1982 – the same year the Commodore 64 was released and we stopped calling July 1 Dominion Day. What’s interesting about these changes is they could be implemented immediately and relatively easily – and the benefit to Canadians would be a privacy law that is modern, responsive and efficient.
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Last week, the Seattle Times reported on an experiment the University of Washington is conducting with radio frequency identification, or RFID. The university, responsible for one of the largest experiments using wireless tags in a social setting, has effectively created a futuristic atmosphere where RFID is everywhere. With this in place, they hope to uncover problems before the technology becomes widely adopted.
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We recently referenced this Q&A in the Times Online with Facebook’s chief privacy officer. Privacy guru Michael Zimmer pokes fun at the questions posed by the interviewer in a recent blog post and comes up with what he calls “a real set of questions” for the chief privacy officer at Facebook. Some samples:
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The Office of Communications in the U.K. has just released a research report on young peoples’ use of social networking sites. Among their findings:
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Last month, a correspondent with Popular Science conducted his own privacy experiment — to be as anonymous as possible while still living a normal life. His conclusion? That it’s nearly impossible.
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University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist has launched iOptOut, a website allowing Canadians to opt out of unsolicited phone calls and emails. iOptOut is meant to complement the federal government’s Do-Not-Call list, expected sometime in the fall of this year:
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Day to day, our actions are being captured, and increasingly, it’s being done by surveillance cameras. This technology – like RFID tags – is being used by more organizations everyday to improve security and deter thieves. And while that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to employ cameras, organizations should also be ensuring their surveillance activities minimize the impact on people’s privacy.
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This week, Facebook launched new privacy control upgrades and, for the most part, the news reports have been positive.
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This Web 2.0 thing is all about collaboration, so here’s what we’re asking of you, dear readers. We want your help in creating T-shirts we plan to give away at conferences and workshops. We want these T-shirts to be privacy-themed, attractive, and witty. We would like to enlist your help in designing them – by either sending us your best witty privacy-themed tagline, or by coming up with your own original design. The best designs will be chosen for our T-shirts, and the winning designers will get- well, a T-shirt. We’ll accept any and all submissions by next Tuesday, March 25. Send your taglines and artwork to dguerrero@privcom.gc.ca. Good luck!
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Last year, IT security firm Sophos ran an experiment on Facebook to demonstrate just how willing people were to hand over their information to potential ID thieves. They created a fake profile page on Facebook for a small green plastic frog and sent out 200 friend requests to other Facebook users. Eighty-two of those people responded, and in doing so, divulged personal information like their email address, birthdate, workplace or school location, and phone number – all useful details for the aspiring identity thief.
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