Contributions Program 2012-2013
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Project Descriptions
The following is a brief description of funded projects:
Organization: British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA)
Location: British Columbia
Funding Amount: $50,000.00
Project Title: A National ID Card by Stealth
Project Leader: Kate Milberry
Project Description: This project will analyze the regulatory environment associated with BC’s smart card roll out. By surveying and evaluating emergent ID card technologies in BC and the role ID card vendors play in evolving identity management frameworks, the researcher aims to better assess the impact of these cards on data protection and identity integrity not only in the province, but in Canada generally. The research will attempt to determine which industries, including the payment card industries, are the primary private sector drivers and stakeholders of ID proposals. It will investigate which vendors will be involved in the production of the new card and its associated database, along with the ramifications of monetizing these. This will be complemented by a technical review of these frameworks, including vulnerabilities, in a comparative analysis, as well as a legal review that will ascertain gaps and opportunities in the law.
Organization: Media Awareness Network
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $50,000.00
Project Title: Young Canadians in a Wired World Phase III: Quantitative Research Project
Project Leader: Cathy Wing
Project Description: Young Canadians in a Wired World (YCWW) is an ongoing project that began in 2000. It tracks and investigates the behaviours, attitudes and opinions of Canadian children and youth with respect to their use of the Internet. Phase III of the project will include a national in-class survey that will address significant technological and social developments in the online landscape. The researchers will produce a literature review, contract a research firm to conduct the survey, develop online and offline questionnaires and supporting documentation, strike an Advisory Committee, and recruit schools to participate. The study sample will include 6,000 children and youth aged 9 to 17, from across Canada, rural and urban, French and English, male and female.
Organization: University of Alberta
Location: Alberta
Funding Amount: $50,000.00
Project Title: Designing a Model Policy Framework for Privacy Challenges in Cell Therapy Research
Project Leader: Ubaka Ogbogu and Timothy Caulfield
Project Description: The goals of this project are to identify and categorize relevant privacy issues associated with existing and emerging innovations in cell therapy and assess the application of existing Canadian and international regulatory instruments to develop model policies and best practices aimed at addressing these issues. The project will produce a report outlining the researchers’ findings and recommendations, scholarly papers, popular press commentaries, a privacy education module for scientists and the general public, public lectures, workshops and conferences.
Organization: University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $16,100.00
Project Title: Privacy and Civic Duty: The Legitimate Scope of Voluntary Information Sharing by Private Enterprises in Law Enforcement Investigations into Cybercrime
Project Leader: Andrea Slane
Project Description: The project will focus on the emerging body of case law, proposed and enacted legislative mandates, and industry practices marking the legitimate parameters within which private enterprises are free to share with police information pertaining to employees or customers. By focussing on cybercrime (broadly understood as crime centrally involving the use of a computer), the project aims to both enhance knowledge on this expanding and still developing area of privacy law, and to provide a web-based forum for disseminating that body of knowledge to both private enterprises affected by it and students aiming to pursue a career in privacy.
Organization: University of Victoria
Location: British Columbia
Funding Amount: $25,336.80
Project Title: Social Networking and Privacy Protection: Analysing the "Access" in Lawful Access
Project Leaders: Colin Bennett and Christopher Parsons
Project Description: This research addresses the issue of how social networking sites grapple with providing personal information to law enforcement agencies. In addition to publishing media commentary and scholarly articles, the research team will build a semi-interactive website that will help Canadians better understand what certain social networking services say they do with personal information when it is requested by law enforcement and ordinary users.
Organisation: Coopérative radiophonique de Toronto (CHOQ FM)
Province: Ontario
Funding Amount: $50,000.00
Project Title: Privacy: Better integrated knowledge for better informed communities
Project Leader: Tonia Mori
Project Description: This project consists of developing a series of radio and Web tools to transform and apply the theoretical results obtained by Francophone researchers on privacy concerns, with the priority on researchers working in a linguistic minority situation. Interviews will be conducted with researchers and with private- and public-sector organizations, to learn about their practices regarding the collection, use and communication of personal information in their commercial activities. A series of reports and media lines will be prepared based on the interviews, providing Canadians with a better understanding of their privacy rights. The tools created will be disseminated via the Internet and participating radio stations and made available to journalists at Francophone community radio stations in Quebec and the rest of Canada.
Organization: University of Toronto
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $49,920.00
Project Title: IXmaps: Mapping Canadian Privacy Risks in the Internet Cloud
Project Leader: Andrew Clement
Project Description: This project aims to promote a better understanding by Canadians of cloud computing and the privacy risks it poses. It will use geographic mapping and other visualization techniques to reveal, in an easy to understand and graphically compelling fashion, key features of Internet routing and cloud computing, particularly as they impact the privacy of Canadians. The researchers will also convene a policy workshop, titled “Privacy and the Cloud?”, which will bring together privacy officials, technology and policy experts and citizen advocates.
Organization: BC Society of Transition Houses
Location: British Columbia
Funding Amount: $50,000.00
Project Title: Safety Net Canada: Technology, Privacy, Safety and Violence Against Women, Youth and Children
Project Leader: Shabna Ali
Project Description: The BC Society of Transition Houses will conduct research on the safety of women and children in light of the privacy implications of new information technologies, specifically the vulnerabilities of these technologies in terms of privacy and protection of personal information. The recipient also plans to develop educational material to enhance the privacy and safety of victims of abuse. The Safety Net Canada project aims to educate survivors, anti-violence workers, their organizations and the general public on ways to use information technologies strategically to enhance privacy, and help victims find safety and flee domestic abuse, sexual violence and stalking.
Organization: University of Toronto
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $42,320.00
Project Title: Video Surveillance & Privacy: Who is Watching You?
Project Leader: Joseph Ferenbok
Project Description: This study aims to provide a snapshot of what Canadians know about video surveillance and their information rights through an audit of Canadian attitudes regarding the nature of video surveillance and privacy. After collecting data from the population sample, researchers plan to draft a paper on surveillance norms and expectations in Canada. The paper will then be presented to various focus groups and conferences to stimulate debate over the changing nature of the surveillance landscape in Canada.
Organisation: Option Consommateurs
Province: Quebec
Funding Amount: $43,078.00
Project Title: How to reconcile the interests of consumers, businesses, retailers and professionals
Project Leaders: Geneviève Grenier and Maryse Guénette
Project Description: Option Consommateurs will conduct interviews with groups of businesses, retailers and professionals to learn how their members protect themselves and their reasons for doing so. It will also contact police forces to see whether those practices are appropriate, and will strike a committee charged with finding tangible solutions to help businesses and professionals to protect themselves against fraud while respecting privacy legislation. It will produce a report detailing the input and results obtained.
Organization: Community Opportunity & Innovation Network Inc.
Location: Ontario
Funding Amount: $44,160.00
Project Title: An Investigation of the Role of Smartphone Application Permissions in Risks to End User Privacy
Project Leader: Adrianne Schutt
Project Description: This project will develop a literature review of smartphone applications with respect to end user privacy, along with an annotated bibliography. The researchers will use handsets from four dominant smartphone platforms to conduct their study. Using each platform’s smartphone application store, the platform’s 100 most popular English-language applications will be acquired and examined to determine their risks to end-user privacy. The researchers will also use the findings resulting from this study to conduct six in-person seminars and online webinars. The knowledge translation activities will focus on vulnerable populations, including youth, persons with disabilities and victims of violence.
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