You Might be Interested In

There has been a long-standing debate between privacy advocates and government officials about the extent of government interest in the information transmitted across domestic and international networks. The passage of USA PATRIOT Act intensified this debate and prompted concern from a more general audience as well. Ever since, the digerati and online crowd have been whispering and wondering about the interface between search engines, particularly Google, and law enforcement and national security bodies.

In brief, this comes up in classrooms and at conferences in roughly the following exchange:

Q. “So, should I worry about what Google knows about me?”

A. “Maybe, but I’d worry more about what the government gets out of Google, then matches with what they already know about you.”

Around this issue, researchers like Chris Soghoian in the US (as well as Ben Hayes and Simon Davies overseas) have been pushing for greater transparency from both companies and government on the use of broad data production powers.  Last week, to their great credit, Google took a big first step and published an interactive map on the numbers and types of data requests they recieve from governments around the world.  This coincides with another important US private sector push – Digitaldueprocess.org – that is asking for clear, consistent and accountable measures to be put in place when government ask companies to ‘check up’ on their customers.

We commend Google and others involved for this significant first step, look forward to improvements and more details as they tweak the reporting model and sincerely hope other companies (and, ahem! governments) follow suit.

Earlier this month, a rich subset of social media users and technology evangelists descended upon Austin, Texas for the annual SxSW interactive conference. Some see SxSW (South by SouthWest) as an early indicator of developing technology trends. Twitter, the popular microblogging service, broke out as a popular consumer application at the conference two years ago.

This year, the dominant trend seems to be locational services. The video embedded below was produced by a company called SimpleGeo: it uses a data visualization tool to demonstrate how attendees, performers and regular old Austinites were using various consumer locational services during the conference.
Obviously, there are many people who find these services useful, either to meet up with friends, create the opportunity to meet new friends, or simply brag about getting into the most exclusive parties and shows.

As an Office, we are interested in how information from these locational services might be integrated into larger efforts to collect and aggregate data about consumers’ behaviour and preferences.

We also like really cool data visualizations.

Markets created by security theatre: 3floz.com offers travel size TSA-approved beauty products

Dates and agendas for OPC’s consultations in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary

Mozilla and others work on simple privacy policies

Viviane Reding: European Union Keynote Speech at the Data Protection Day

Here we go again! For the seventh year in a row, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is launching its Contributions Program, which funds data privacy research and public awareness projects.

We’re very proud of the Contributions Program, partly because it’s considered one of the leading programs of its kind in the world. Since 2004, we’ve been using the Program to advance data privacy knowledge by funding major research projects, all of them led by Canadian researchers. And for the past two years, the Program has helped civil society organizations educate a growing number of Canadians about privacy.

We’re once again making $500,000 available to researchers and civil society organizations who want to apply for funding: $50,000 per project and $100,000 per organization. This year we’re especially interested in funding research projects into the impact of technology on privacy, a hot topic if there ever was one! As well, even though we prefer to fund projects that wrap up in the year the funding is provided (in this case, the 2010-11 fiscal year), we’re willing to fund projects that continue into the next fiscal year (projects ending after March 31, 2011).

Well, there you have it! If you are interested in privacy and feel you have a contribution to make (no pun intended) as a researcher or civil society organization, go ahead and apply. The 2010-11 application deadline is February 26, 2010.

For more information or to access our application form, go to our Web site at http://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/cp/p_index_e.cfm.

danah boyd: “Public by default, private when necessary“

Great Britain: 4,500 USBs are left in Dry Cleaners

I know. It’s kind of boring when I only post excerpts from our more formal publications. In some cases, though, the traditional news release and backgrounder nail the issue and the details.

We’re ” … hosting consultations with Canadians on issues that we feel pose a serious challenge to the privacy of consumers, now and in the near future.

The topics to be explored include the online tracking, profiling and targeting of consumers by businesses, and the growing trend towards cloud computing.

The aim of this consumer consultation is to learn more about such industry practices, explore their privacy implications, and find out what privacy protections Canadians expect with respect to these practices. The consultation is also intended to promote debate about the impact of these technological developments on privacy, and to inform the next review process for the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

The centerpiece of the consultations will be a series of single-day panel discussions [in Toronto, Montreal and elsewhere] involving a range of participants, including representatives of industry, government, consumer associations and civil society. In order to canvass the broadest possible range of views in preparation for these events, we are also welcoming written submissions.”

More details on the public consultations can be found elsewhere on our site.