The three top video artists in the live action category were:

1^st place: Jeffery Burge, Vanessa Caicedo, Alexandra Georgaras, Gareth Imrie and Fiona Sauder of Canterbury High School in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Think Before You Click”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: David Borish and Mory Kaba of Glebe Collegiate Institute in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Friend or Foe”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Jennifer Paul from Brampton, Ontario, with a video titled “Too Good to be True”. She wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the animation category were:

1^st place: Tyler Ford and Matthew Kerr of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Privacy: Think Before You Click”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Rebecca Kartzmart and Emily Patterson of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Carol the Carrot”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Scott Piper of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with a video titled “Privacy Matters”. He wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the French video category were:

1^st place: Benjamin Dion-Weiss of l’École secondaire publique De La Salle in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Le réseautage social d’après le Comte Hackula”. He wins a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Stéphanie Lemieux and Emily Vendette of l’École secondaire catholique Embrun in Embrun, Ontario, with a video titled “Le Journal de Lisa”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Cosmo Darwin of l’École secondaire publique De La Salle in Ottawa, Ontario, with a video titled “Trouvée & Perdu”. He wins a $150 gift card.

The three top video artists in the Junior category were:

1^st place: Mackenzie Giffen, Chris Johnstone, Chris Nattrass, Curtis Sookhoo and Gabriel Zingle of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “The Spanish Lottery”. They win a $100 gift card and an iPod Touch.

2^nd place: Trevor Aiello, Connor Bergersen, Chad Bullock and Lochlan Thomson of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “A lesson In Privacy”. They win a $250 gift card.

3^rd place: Matthew Craner, Scott Deshane, Madison Gilchrist, Joe Matishak and Graeme Wyatt of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with a video titled “The Phone Number Test”. They win a $150 gift card.

We also recognized seven teachers for their enthusiastic participation in the contest. They were:

• Crystal Getschel, of F.R. Haythorne Junior High in Sherwood Park, Alberta, with 26 entries.
• Majed Mattar, of Osgoode Township High School in Metcalfe, Ontario, with 21 entries.
• Professor Kaduri, of Tanenbaum Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto, Ontario, with 15 entries.
• Grant Holmes, of École secondaire publique De La Salle, Ottawa, Ontario, with 11 entries.
• Carol Shaw, of Woodstock Collegiate Institute, Woodstock, Ontario, with 8 entries.
• Kevin Shae, of Sir Robert Borden High School, Ottawa, Ontario with 6 entries.
• Stephen Willcock, of Canterbury High School, Ottawa, Ontario, with 5 entries.

Each teacher will receive a $250 gift certificate at Indigo Books and Music to use for personal use or for the school they represent.

The videos will be posted as soon as possible to our youth site. They will also be available on our YouTube channel.

We were thrilled with the number and quality of submissions we received for our second competition. We’ll be launching the 2010 contest in May!

Twitter, of course, enables its users to post short 140-character messages. Social networking games like Foursquare encourage players to post their precise location information in order to gain points – the more locations you “check in”, the more points you gain. These “check-ins” can also be automatically posted to a player’s Twitter or Facebook account.

A couple of Dutch developers have created a site called PleaseRobMe to point out the dangers of posting so much information on your whereabouts.

Don’t get us wrong, we love the whole location-aware thing. The information is very interesting and can be used to create some pretty awesome applications….  The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home.

The creators of PleaseRobMe point out that users could be putting others around them at risk as well. Foursquare players, for example might also be posting location information for places they frequent…like the homes of friends and family.

The site – which took developers four hours to build – is a witty little reminder to consider the possible repurcussions of what we post online.

For those without a “significant other”, the pressure might be on to get out there and find one, especially at this time of year. This is why many people turn to social networking or online dating sites to find potential love interests. It can be easy to “stalk” or “creep” someone’s profile page, their pictures, and what their friends, colleagues, or coworkers have been saying about them. While these public profiles can provide conversation starters (“So I saw you liked Led Zeppelin/Hootie and the Blowfish/The Spice Girls…”), they might lead to an inaccurate judge of character.

On many social networking sites, people remain “friends” with their exes. This can be a difficult situation, so consider being sensitive about what you post. If you’ve just recently broken up with someone, it may not be the most diplomatic idea to post 20 pictures of yourself canoodling with a new paramour—but if you do, remember to adjust your privacy settings to control who gets a detailed look into your love life.

For those who are still searching for love, look no further than your cell phone. There are many applications that have been created to provide the battlefield of love with military intelligence. Mobile dating applications, such as MeetMoi and MIT’s Serendipity, alert potential matches when a compatible mate is nearby. Users provide information about their interests, and these services use GPS capabilities of their cell phones to locate other compatible users nearby, letting you know about that special someone buying a coffee ahead of you in line. These applications, however, may use your personal information to serve up targeted ads—perhaps about flowers or engagement rings.

If your matchmaking efforts have been in vain, you may be tempted to try a novel approach: genetic testing to find your perfect partner. You send a genetic sample, such as a cheek swab, to a company that determines your match with other members based on factors such as immune system genes. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to suggest that romance lies in your DNA, and releasing your genetic information can expose you to serious privacy risks.

Other applications are set in place to find that special someone safely. Funbers is a phone application that allows people to give out an alternate phone number that they can then use to screen calls. If a date went terribly wrong and they haven’t quite got the hint, Funbers allows the user to send out busy signals or out-of-service messages to make it clear. On the darker side, for those who are suspicious of their loved one’s past new applications from BeenVerified and Date Check allow the user to do a background check on their loved one from their cell phone. A better approach to this suspicion might be to simply ask your partner about his or her past. It is very important to trust your partner, but also to respect their privacy!

The research examined Canadian’s concerns with the privacy of their personal information generally, level of comfort with sharing location-linked personal information, level of awareness and use of location-tracking devices such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and use and comfort level with online mapping tools.

This report was commissioned by Natural Resources Canada through its GeoConnections initiative.  A couple of highlights…

It was confirmed that respondents had a very low general understanding of what “geospatial data” is and struggled when trying to define terms such as “location-based information” or “location-based personal information”.

The study found that generally speaking, respondents are concerned about the privacy of their personal information (with over 80% stating they are “concerned” or “very concerned”).

When it comes to sharing location-linked personal information, control over the information being shared and the overall purpose for sharing the information were the two key drivers of comfort.  Respondents felt most comfortable if they have a high degree of control over the sharing of their information and the reason for sharing their location-linked personal information was related to a public good such as enhanced public safety or improved health care.

And what made Canadians uncomfortable?  Canadians became uncomfortable when they had no control over the sharing of their location-linked personal information and when their location-linked personal information was being used for economic reasons or targeted marketing.

There was support for the role of Government in the regulation of geospatial information.  For example, with regard to individual’s real-time movements, over 68% of respondents thought it was important for the Government of Canada to regulate the collection and sharing of location-linked personal information.  The majority of respondents (74%) thought it was important for the Government of Canada to regulate images of private residences appearing on internet mapping tools.

Who do Canadians trust with their location-linked personal information?  Level of trust was highest for medical institutions (58%) followed by federal and provincial governments (46%).  Interestingly, trust levels for federal and provincial governments were somewhat higher than for municipal government (35%) – proponents of the smart grid may have a bit of work to do.

And who was trusted least?  Social networking sites (6%), which is curious considering the sheer volume of personal information we voluntary give up to these sites (including increasing amounts of location-linked personal information).

It is notable that this research was completed just prior to Google’s Streetview going live in Canada.  With the launch of Streetview and the ever growing availability of new, innovative and useful location-based services such as friend finders, local search and restaurant recommenders, it will be interesting to see whether geospatial information evolves into a top-of-mind privacy issue for Canadians.

If you own a company, or work for a big one: in the past, you may have had to ensure that your customers’ name and address information (and in some cases credit card and billing information) were safe. Now, many of you are providing technology and tools for your customers to put increasing amounts of personal information online. Does your company have the systems in place to safeguard this information? Do you give your customers the tools and options to control how their information is used?

If you are a user of new and cool technology: in the past a telephone was a telephone, a video game was a video game, a stuffed toy was simply that – a stuffed toy. Today, more and more toys and handheld tools come with the ability to go online. Do you understand how to enjoy your toys and gadgets without putting your personal information at risk?

If you are a parent or guardian, teacher, coach or caregiver: do the young people in your life understand how to use all these new toys and gadgets while keeping their personal information safe? Our office has recently made youth privacy a key priority. Today, we have posted some new resources to the Parents & Teachers section of our youth web site. The resources include information on 12 privacy issues (such as the importance of privacy settings and knowing who your friends are on social networking sites), along with ideas for generating discussion about each issue with young people. You can use these resources to start discussion about personal privacy and the importance of thinking about what you post on the Internet.

Regardless of which group you are in – if you need any information about how to keep personal information secure, visit our web sites – priv.gc.ca and youthprivacy.ca.

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.