On July 16th, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released a report of findings into complaints made by the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) against Facebook Inc. for alleged breaches of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Facebook, as most Canadians know by now, is a major […]
There have been criticisms of the European Parliament elections from various quarters. These criticisms range from a consistently declining voter turnout and lack of enthusiasm for the election of Members of the European Parliament to the ability of "fringe" political parties to gain a seat due to their ability to convert fanatical energy for a […]
In this post I will focus on the ongoing debates regarding Deep Packet Inspections in Canada. I will also point out its extreme use in countries such as Iran and China. Canada A recent debate in Canada revolves around Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use of Deep Packet Inspections (DPI) technology. DPI provides a mechanism for […]
Lawful access legislation has once again popped up in Canada. On June 18 Parliament introduced two new bills: the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act (Bill C-46) and the Technical Assistance for Law Enforcement in the 21st Century Act (Bill C-47). According to the government press release, the main goal of the new Acts […]
Stephen Sharon is a recent graduate of Touro Law School in New York where he focused on intellectual property. Stephen was also the first place winner of the Nathan Burkan Memorial Competition sponsored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for his submission of a case study about the legal battle between […]
The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics recently released a report to the House of Commons about suggested amendments to the Privacy Act. The report outlined and gave opinions on twelve quick-fix proposals put forth by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. The Privacy Act was enacted in 1983 and serves the purpose of […]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently launched a new web site called TOSBack which tracks changes to the terms of service and privacy policies of several popular websites. Among the tracked sites are Facebook, EBay, World of Warcraft, and various other social networking sites and internet service providers. Visitors can see a change log for […]
Does Google know what you're doing online? Eighty-eight percent of the time, the answer might be yes. Earlier this month a group of graduate students at UC Berkeley released a detailed report on the extent of online tracking and the disconnect between reality and user expectations. The data in the report was collected from various […]
Consider the following scenario: The sales team at a large software company is meeting with a particularly hot prospect and is hoping to seal the deal on a big sale of Product X. Things have been going great, but right in the middle of the meeting someone pulls out a printout of a message board […]
A recent Court of Appeal decision in England declared that retention of photos taken of a man by the police long after it was determined that no crime had occurred by the person was a breach of privacy. Andrew Wood was photographed as he was leaving the annual general meeting of Reed Elsevier plc, which […]