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How comfortable, exactly, are online users with their information and online browsing habits being used to track their behaviour and serve ads to them?
Read moreHow comfortable, exactly, are online users with their information and online browsing habits being used to track their behaviour and serve ads to them?
Read moreTwitter. That’s right; I’m going to talk about Twitter, making the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada the official end point for the “Have you heard about Twitter?” meme. (For a quick summary of this meme, listen to this audio from a podcast called Jordan Jesse Go!)
Read moreToday the OPC issued Captured on Camera, a fact sheet intended to help Canadians understand the privacy issues surrounding street-level imaging applications like Google StreetView and a similar product offered by Canpages.(html), (pdf)
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How does society reconcile the technological benefits and privacy impacts of new technology? Deep packet inspection is just one seemingly neutral technological application that can have a significant impact on privacy rights and other basic civil liberties, especially as market forces, the enthusiasm of technologists and the influence of national security
interests grow stronger.
What would you think if you wrote a letter and it could be opened up by a postal or a courier service before it reaches its destination? What would you think if that happened to your online communication? It’s not necessarily a hypothetical question.
Read moreThis week, the OPC released guidelines for processing personal data across borders. These guidelines explain how the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) applies to the transfer of personal information to a third party outside of Canada for processing.
Read moreIs there anything more annoying that 100 people ahead of you in line when you are trying to purchase that perfect holiday gift? Well what about while you are in the midst of your harried purchase, being asked to pull out your driver’s licence so the retailer can record the number? Not only can this be annoying, but it might also be a violation of your personal privacy.
Read moreWith another federal election underway, a number of policy issues with privacy implications have been put on hold until after October 14. The debate over copyright was one of the most contentious issues before the House and certainly one that captured the interest of Canadians throughout the country. Before the election call, we received a letter from James Pew, a music studio owner in Toronto. He voices his concerns as a small business owner over the proposed copyright legislation, pointing out that it “does not take into account the needs of consumers and Canada’s creative community who are exploiting the potential of digital technology”. (You can view his full letter on his blog.)
Read moreOn July 3, 2008 the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada announced the results of a public opinion study we commissioned on the personal information customers hand over (or refuse to) to retailers. According to the results, more than half of Canadians said that they were apprehensive about giving their personal information to retailers, citing concerns over security issues, identity theft and fraud.
Read moreThe social networking site Facebook has been under scrutiny lately for lax security with its applications feature. Applications in Facebook are created by third-party software developers and are run on third-party servers. These applications can take many forms – a quiz, a game, or just another way to reach out to friends – but the common feature in all is that they allow software developers to access Facebook users’ personal data.
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