P2P Symposium

The Pathways to Privacy Research Symposium initiative was established by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) to increase awareness of the outcomes of privacy research and knowledge translation projects in Canada.

The initiative encourages and supports the creation of symposium events that showcase projects funded by the OPC’s Contributions Program and other relevant funders. The events are designed to facilitate a dialogue between the people who do privacy research and those who apply it, so that more people can use and benefit from this work. They also provide stakeholders with an interest in privacy promotion and protection with the opportunity to network and build partnerships.

It is designed to generate privacy awareness and discussion by bringing together a wide variety of potential end-users, including academia, government, private sector, parliamentarians, non-profit organizations and privacy regulators.

The 2015 Symposium will take place on Thursday, February 26th, 2015 at University of Ottawa, in Tabaret Hall.

Theme: A Return to First Principles for Privacy at the Cutting-Edge

As technology and the sciences continue to advance, it becomes ever more challenging to ensure that privacy for all Canadians is valued and protected. The proliferation of neural networks, online fora and genetic linkages combining with complex international systems, shifting social norms and changing political climates pull us further and further away from the first principles which privacy is intended to embody and to which privacy is intended to give meaning.

A Return to First Principles for Privacy at the Cutting-Edge seeks to return to those first principles, notably: dignity, autonomy, respect for persons and democratic participation. Rather than discuss those first principles in the abstract, the symposium speakers will link these first principles to what is, and what will be, taking place at the forefront of technology, science and society.

Organizing Committee

Chair: Madelaine Saginur, Centre for Law, Technology and Society, University of Ottawa
David Fewer, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, University of Ottawa
Tamir Israel, Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, University of Ottawa
Yann Joly, Centre of Genomics and Policy, McGill University
Bartha Maria Knoppers, Centre of Genomics and Policy, Mcgill University
John Lawford, Public Interest Advocacy Centre
Teresa Scassa, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa 
Geoffrey White, Public Interest Advocacy Centre

With the Collaboration of:
Michael Geist, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa 
Mistrale Goudreau, Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section), University of Ottawa 
Ian Kerr, Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), University of Ottawa

Speaker's Biographies

Keynote Speaker: 

Patricia Kosseim Senior General Counsel and Director General Legal Services, Policy, Research and Technology Analysis Branch Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC)

Patricia provides strategic legal and policy advice on a broad range of privacy issues, oversees privacy research on emerging information technologies, and represents the Privacy Commissioner before courts and Parliamentary Committees. Patricia has also worked at Genome Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research where she developed and led national strategies to address ethical, legal and social implications of science and technology. Prior to moving to Ottawa, Patricia practiced as a lawyer in Montreal for over six years with a large national law firm. Patricia graduated in Business and Law from McGill University in Montreal and holds a Masters’ degree in Medical Law and Ethics from the King’s College London, UK. Called to the Barreau du Québec in 1993, she has published and presented extensively on matters of health law, privacy and ethics. She is a member of the Board of Governors of The Ottawa Hospital and teaches part-time at the Common law section of the Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa.

Keynote Speaker: 

Dr. Eloïse Gratton, Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP

Eloïse advises clients from various industries on legal and privacy requirements of new projects, products, practices, programs and technologies, providing strategic national and international privacy and anti-spam compliance advice and assisting them in crisis management situations (privacy class action lawsuits, security breaches and privacy commissioners’ investigations). She is often featured or interviewed in the news as an IT law and privacy expert (Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Radio-Canada, CTV, TVA, V, CBC, Les Affaires, National Post, Le Devoir, La presse, Journal de Montreal, the Gazette, etc.). She is the author of the textbook “Understanding Personal Information: Managing Privacy Risks” (LexisNexis, 2013), which was quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada in the recent important privacy case Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner) v. UFCW, Local 401. She also co-authored the 2013 edition of “Privacy in the Workplace” (CCH) and her 2003 textbook “Internet and Wireless Privacy: Legal Guide to Global Business Practices” (CCH) was also quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Tariff 22 decision. She has been featured in the LEXPERT magazine as a leading Canadian privacy lawyer in fall 2013. Eloïse is a regular speaker at privacy and technology events and has testified or presented before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, House of Commons. She teaches privacy law (U of M). She holds a doctorate degree in privacy law (University of Paris II and U of M).

Panel 1: Health Privacy 

Amy Conroy, Doctoral Student, University of Ottawa

Amy is a PhD student at the University of Ottawa and is working under the joint supervision of Professor Elizabeth Judge and Professor Teresa Scassa. Her previous graduate and undergraduate background is in Law, Economics, and Psychology. Her doctoral research considers the emerging issue of familial searching of DNA in the criminal context from a Critical Race Theory perspective. The thesis examines the equality issues in particular along with the potential implications for the right to privacy and to life, liberty, and security of the person. Other research and teaching interests include healthcare law and policy, genetic privacy, and Indigenous rights.

Kelly Grindrod, Assistant Professor, University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy
Kelly Grindrod, BScPharm, PharmD, MSc is a pharmacist and researcher. Her work focuses on the role digital technologies can play in helping people understand medications. Read more about her research at kellygrindrod.com.

Yann Joly, Research Director, Centre of Genomics and Policies, McGill University

Yann Joly, Ph.D. (DCL), Ad.E. is a Lawyer Emeritus from the Quebec Bar and the Research Director of the Centre of Genomics and Policies(CGP). He is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Department of Human Genetics and, at the Bioethics Unit, at McGill University. He is a research fellow from the Fonds de recherche du Québec- Santé (FRQS) and an associate researcher at the Centre de recherche en droit public (Université de Montréal). He also works as an ethics and legal consultant in the private sector. He has served as a legal advisor on several ethics committees in the public and private sectors. He received the Quebec Bar Award of Merit (Innovation) for his work on the right to privacy in the biomedical field.

Derek J. Jones, McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism

Derek J. Jones is a health lawyer, lecturer and scholar. A graduate of Harvard and Yale Universities, he works at the interface of human rights, health sciences and ethics. At McGill, he is member of the Centre for Human Rights & Legal Pluralism, a member of McGill’s Research Group on Health and Law, and has taught health law in bioethics, psychiatry and law, AIDS law, comparative medical law, nursing law and ethics. He has collaborated as senior advisor to governmental, professional, university, and international bodies, like Justice Canada, Health Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health, the Law Reform Commission of Canada, French Government, UNESCO. As founding Director of the Government of Canada Interagency Advisory Panel and Secretariat on Research Ethics, he played a leading role in the revision of Canada’s national standards for the ethical conduct research involving humans. His studies and reports have focussed on ethico-legal and medical riddles before modern society, such as the right to health; genetic testing and human rights; AIDS discrimination; human research and international privacy laws; brain death; biotech ethics, confidentiality; organ sales tissue/ procurement ethics; medically assisted procreation. Current research projects include mental health privacy and equality in the workplace; human rights and research ethics; conflicts of interest; disability law.

Colleen Sheppard, Director, McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism, Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University

Colleen Sheppard is the Director of the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and a Professor at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. She has an honours B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. from Harvard University. Following her legal studies, she clerked for Chief Justice Dickson at the Supreme Court of Canada. Her teaching and research focus on human rights law, equality rights, employment equity, comparative constitutional law and feminist legal theory. In addition to her teaching and research, she has been active in public interest work. She served as a Commissioner on the Quebec Human Rights and Youth Rights Commission from 1991-1996 and has been a consultant with the federal Department of Justice, the National Judicial Institute, the Canadian Human Rights Commission, the Ontario Métis Aboriginal Association and the International Labour Organization. Recent books include: Human Rights and Diverse Societies with François Crépeau) (2013); Inclusive Equality: The Relational Dimensions of Systemic Discrimination in Canada (2010).

Panel 2: Privacy and Security in a Globalized World

Luk Arbuckle, Director of Analytics, Privacy Analytics Inc.

Luk Arbuckle is co-author of the book Anonymizing Health Data: Case Studies and Methods to Get You Started (O'Reilly 2013). The book covers several de-identification projects he’s worked on, such as the $3 million Heritage Health Prize, the Cajun Code Fest hackathon, the American Society of Clinical Oncology's pilot project for CancerLinQ, and Mount Sinai's World Trade Center disaster registry. He has a master's degree in applied mathematics, and another in applied statistics. Luk joined the Electronic Health Information Laboratory (EHIL) at the CHEO Research Institute in 2010 doing research devoted to facilitating the sharing of electronic health information for secondary purposes while protecting patient privacy. Luk continues to do research in the field re-identification risk measurement and de-identification methods through his affiliation with EHIL, and leads a team at Privacy Analytics that assesses re-identification risk in data sets with personal information. He works closely with Khaled El Emam, Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information, an expert in statistical de-identification.

David T. S. Fraser, Partner, McInnes Cooper

David is well-known as one of Canada’s leading internet, technology and privacy lawyers. He regularly advises a range of clients – from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies – on all aspects of technology and privacy laws. He advises private and public sector clients to implement compliance programs for Canadian privacy legislation. David regularly provides opinions on privacy laws for both Canadian and international clients and is a frequently invited speaker on this topic. He also acts for complainants and respondents in matters referred to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and is the author of the popular Canadian Privacy Law Blog (blog.privacylawyer.ca). David is widely recognized as one of Canada’s foremost authorities on privacy law and other legal issues associated with cloud computing. He regularly advises vendors and customers in connection with implementing cloud computing projects, in both the public and private sectors. David is particularly known for his ability to cut through the seemingly intractable issues related to cross-border data flows and law enforcement/national security access to customer data.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa

Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He has obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees from Cambridge University in the UK and Columbia Law School in New York, and a Doctorate in Law (J.S.D.) from Columbia Law School. Dr. Geist is a syndicated columnist on technology law issues with his regular column appearing in the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen. Dr. Geist is the editor of several copyright books including The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law (2013, University of Ottawa Press), From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (2010, Irwin Law) and In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law (2005, Irwin Law). He is also the editor of several monthly technology law publications, and the author of a popular blog on Internet and intellectual property law issues. Dr. Geist has received numerous awards for his work including the Kroeger Award for Policy Leadership and the Public Knowledge IP3 Award in 2010, the Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom from the Ontario Library Association in 2009, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 2008, Canarie’s IWAY Public Leadership Award for his contribution to the development of the Internet in Canada and he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2003. In 2010, Managing Intellectual Property named him on the 50 most influential people on intellectual property in the world and Canadian Lawyer named him one of the 25 most influential lawyers in Canada in 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Panel 3: Privacy after Death

Julia Creet, Associate Professor of English, York University

B.A., History, University of Victoria, M.A. History and Philosophy of Education, University of Toronto, Ph.D., History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz.

Julia Creet is an Associate Professor of English at York University in Toronto. She teaches memory studies, literary nonfiction and satire. She is the co-editor (with Andreas Kitzmann) of Memory and Migration—multidisciplinary approaches to memory studies (University of Toronto Press 2011) and co-editor (with Sara Horowitz and Amira Dan) of H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy (Forthcoming. Northwestern UP, 2015). She is also the director and producer of “MUM: A Story of Silence” (2008), a documentary about a Holocaust survivor who tried to forget, and “Need to Know: Ancestry and the Business of Family” (2015) a feature-length documentary about the industry behind the “innate” need to know one’s past.

Mistrale Goudreau, Full Professor, Faculty of Law (Civil Law Section), University of Ottawa

Mistrale Goudreau holds an LL.L. from the Université de Montréal (Faculté de Droit, Montréal, 1979) and an LL.M. in Commercial Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, (Department of Law, London, England, 1981). She has been a member of the Quebec Bar since 1981 and is full professor at the Civil Law Section of the University of Ottawa where she has been teaching since 1982. Her teaching responsibilities deal with intellectual property, law and technology and statutory interpretation. She has also been a lecturer and visiting professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Montréal, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Nantes (France), and at the Canadian Foreign Service Institute (CFSI) in Ottawa, as well as a research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Patent-, Urheber- und Wettbewerbsrecht (Munich, Germany) and consultant for the Government of Canada. In the past, Mistrale Goudreau has acted as the executive director of the Council of Canadian Law Deans and as the assistant dean for clinical and applied teaching and the vice-dean of the Civil Law Section of the University of Ottawa. She is a member of the executive committee of the editorial board of Les Cahiers de propriété intellectuelle. She has published numerous articles on copyright, unfair competition, legislative drafting and legal theory. She authored a book entitled International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Intellectual Property Canada, (Alphen aan den Rijn (Netherland), Kluwer Law International, 2013).

Margaret Ann Wilkinson, Full Professor, Faculty of Law, Western University

Dr. Margaret Ann Wilkinson trained as both a lawyer and a librarian before writing her PhD dissertation on “The Impact of the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act 1987 upon affected organizations.” Now Professor of Law at Western University, she has been awarded the Ontario Library Association Les Fowlie Intellectual Freedom Award. She is the author of Genealogy and the Law in Canada, co-published by the Ontario Genealogical Society and Dundurn Press in 2010 and recently updated through an article in the OGS Families magazine.

Panel 4: Privacy Digital Skills and Education for Children and Youth

Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

Matthew Johnson is the Director of Education for MediaSmarts, Canada’s center for digital and media literacy. He is the designer of the comprehensive digital literacy tutorials Passport to the Internet (Grades 4-8) and MyWorld (Grades 9-12). He has contributed blogs and articles to websites and magazines around the world as well as presenting MediaSmarts’ materials on topics such as copyright, cyberbullying, body image and online hate to parents, journalists, academics and government bodies in Canada and around the world. Matthew is also an educator with nearly ten years’ experience teaching media education, film-making, English and special education among other subjects. A collection of his short fiction, Irregular Verbs and Other Stories, was published in June of 2014.

Colin McKay, Head of Public Policy and Government Relations for Google in Canada

Colin is the Head of Public Policy and Government Relations for Google in Canada. Before joining Google, he worked as the Director of Research and Public Education at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, where his team researched the impact of the digital economy on personal privacy and then built tools to help individuals understand their privacy rights. Colin is a member of the Government of Canada Advisory Panel on Open Government, and is a member of the board at Media Smarts, a not-for-profit organization that provides youth with critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens.

Karen Louise Smith, Mitacs Elevate Post-doctoral Research Fellow, University of Toronto & Mozilla

Dr. Karen Louise Smith is currently a Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellow with Mozilla and the University of Toronto. The tensions between openness, privacy and participation in a technologically mediated culture are central to her research. Dr. Smith's current work explores Hive Toronto, a Mozilla stewarded digital literacy network, and open educational infrastructures. Through the 2014-2015 Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's Contributions Program, Dr. Smith co-designed prototypes of open privacy badges with teens from the Toronto area.

Abstracts

Keynote: 

Watch the video.

Eloïse Gratton “Are privacy laws adequately protecting and servicing privacy?”

Various definitions of privacy have been adopted since the late nineteenth century, illustrating an evolving concept. After first conceptualizing privacy quite simply as “the right to be let alone” in 1890, then as “the respect for one’s private and family life, his home and his correspondence” in the late forties, a third step in theorizing privacy came in the late 1960s and early 1970s, motivated by technological threats to privacy. With the development of automated data banks and the growing use of computers in the private and public sector, privacy was at that point conceptualized as having individuals “in control over their personal information”. The principles of Fair Information Practices (or “FIPs”) were elaborated during this period and have been incorporated in data protection laws, such as PIPEDA and similar provincial laws, adopted in various jurisdictions around the world ever since. The circumstances have changed fundamentally since privacy was conceptualized as “individuals in control of their personal information”: individuals constantly give off personal information, new business models are increasingly based on the notion of greater customization and many online or mobile service providers are using analytic solutions in order to improve their websites, products or services. The power and scope of the activity of aggregating and correlating information have increased along with Internet technologies, new algorithms are being developed that allow extraction of information from a sea of collected data and data-mining techniques and capabilities are reaching new levels of sophistication. In this context, it is reasonable to wonder if data protection laws still provide for a proper legal framework. In order to ensure that data protection laws are still and remain effective over time, the main challenge at this point is to properly identify the weaknesses of our system.

Keynote: 

Watch the video.

Patricia Kosseim "Privacy at the Cutting Edge: A Return to First Principles, but Which Principles?"

Patricia Kosseim will welcome participants on behalf of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She will open the symposium by providing a broad overview of the day's themes, revisit first principles underlying privacy interests at the cutting edge, and raise a few questions for reflection throughout the day.

Panel 1: Health Privacy

Watch the video

Amy Conroy “Genetic “Junk” Collection and the Future of Canada’s National DNA Data Bank”

Justifications for the existence of forensic DNA databanks have often emphasized that the portions of the genetic code used in criminal identification are limited to non-coding or “junk” DNA. That is, forensic databanks were established and developed based on the idea that the DNA profiles contained on these databases could not reveal sensitive medical information about the individuals from whom they were derived. This assumption has been challenged by recent studies showing the potential for medically relevant characteristics (e.g. propensity towards certain medical conditions) to be revealed through examination of non-coding DNA. Moreover, it has been suggested that this process may allow for determination of other personal characteristics such as race or ethnic background. This presentation will discuss the initial importance of the distinction between coding and non-coding DNA within the context of Canada’s National DNA Data Bank. It will then examine recent evidence that calls the junk-DNA assumption into question. This will include consideration of the meaning of “medically significant” when it comes to junk DNA, emphasizing that while non-coding DNA may not hold a causal relationship with certain characteristics, it may nevertheless correlate with these same characteristics. Finally, the potential for non-coding DNA to play an unanticipated role in the future of Canadian criminal investigations will be examined in order to gain an understanding of the potential power of “junk” DNA within the future of forensic DNA data banking.

Kelly Grindrod “The Reliability of Security Options for Mobile Health Applications Designed for Use With Older Adults with Chronic Disease”

The goal of this project is to evaluate the current security solutions available for mobile health applications (mHealth apps) designed for consumers. The researchers will also provide recommendations for both consumers and mHealth developers on the best mechanisms to easily and reliably secure consumer-generated health data in a way that remains accessible for individuals with age-related or disease-related disabilities. The researchers hope the study findings will provide a model for secure consumer mHealth implementation across Canada and guide regulations for upholding consumer privacy standards for these applications. The ultimate beneficiaries of this research project will be Canadians who want to use mobile applications to manage or prevent disease.

Yann Joly “A policy governance framework for analyzing genomic data in a cloud computing environment”

The biggest challenge in twenty-first century data-intensive genomic science is developing vast computer infrastructure and advanced software tools to perform comprehensive analyses of genomic data sets for biomedical research and clinical practice. Researchers are increasingly turning to cloud computing both as a solution to integrate data from genomics, systems biology and biomedical data mining and as an approach to analyze data to solve biomedical problems. This presentation will identify the core elements for a privacy governance framework for the storage and sharing of genomic data in cloud computing. Our information was gathered from the following research activities. First, the researchers created a cloud computing privacy compendium, which include key citations from a comparative legal review, as well as critical comments drawn from legal and bioinformatics content analysis. Second, the researchers developed a discussion document to provide an overview of the privacy governance frameworks applicable to cloud computing, a comparison of the privacy policies and/or relevant agreements used in cloud service providers in Canada and in other jurisdictions (i.e. United States and European Union) and, an overview of the relevant literature. A short policy brief, available in both English and French, on cloud computing and the law will summarize the main finding of the research.

Derek J. Jones & Colleen Sheppard "Mental Health Information Privacy & Equality in the Workplace (MEHIP)"

With one in five persons experiencing a mental "disorder" during their lives, mental health in the workplace has emerged as a pressing and substantial issue for workers and families, management and institutions, occupational health professionals and insurers, and health and human rights. A Report from the Canadian Senate in 2004 explains: one-third to one-half of people with mental illnesses report being turned down for a job for which they were qualified, after they disclosed their conditions, were dismissed from their jobs, and/or were forced to resign as a result of their mental illness. Recent Canadian and international reports echo and document the phenomena as a global issue. How shall we more effectively respond to the associated health information privacy, disclosure, and safety reporting issues; the stigmatisation dynamics; our accommodation and non-discrimination duties? Drawing on human rights case studies, comparative international research and interdisciplinary literature, the MEHIP project identifies leading issues and questions, best practices and standards, towards just and enabling guidance on mental health information privacy and equality rights in the federally-regulated workplace.

Panel 2: Privacy and Security in a Globalized World

Watch the video

Luk Arbuckle "Open Data and Privacy"

There is increasing demand for data from both private and public sector institutions. This may be financial data, health and lifestyle data, Internet transaction or clickstream data, and travel/movement data. These data can be used in many ways, such as to develop or improve new services and products, for research and public health purposes, and to inform or even change the behaviour of citizens.

There is no question that providing greater access to data can have many benefits to society. However, making data about individuals more widely available also entails privacy risks, and inappropriate disclosure of personal information can erode individuals’ trust in public and private sector institutions.

This presentation will provide an overview of responsible methods that can be employed to facilitate the open sharing of data while also protecting individual privacy. This includes techniques to assess risk and de-identify data, and the use of quasi-open data options as well.

David T.S. Fraser "National security and privacy on a borderless internet: A practical perspective for Canadians"

Concern about the USA Patriot Act and Canadians’ data is not new, but has only heightened with the Snowden revelations. This has also coincided with the dramatic growth in the adoption of cloud computing, which does not seem to be letting up. This presentation will provide an overview of US and Canadian national security laws that affect the privacy of data in the cloud, leading to a discussion of how to practically assess the risk to privacy of the adoption of different models of cloud computing.

Michael Geist "Why Watching the Watchers Isn't Enough: Canadian Privacy and Surveillance Law in the Post-Snowden Era"

Months of surveillance-related leaks from U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden have fuelled an international debate over privacy, spying, and Internet surveillance. The leaks have painted a picture of ubiquitous surveillance that captures “all the signals all the time”, sweeping up billions of phone calls, texts, emails, and Internet activity with dragnet-style efficiency. While the instinctive Canadian nresponse may be to focus on improved oversight and accountability mechanisms, the bigger challenge will be to address the substantive shortcomings of the current Canadian legal framework. Indeed, improved oversight without addressing the limitations within current law threatens to leave many of the core problems in place. In short, watching the watchers is not enough.

Panel 3: Privacy after Death

Watch the video

Mistrale Goudreau “Can a post-mortem privacy right be recognized? Looking beyond privacy law for insight”

It is generally held that protection against damage to reputation, and invasion of privacy, are personal rights that end at a person’s death; however, this may not be the case. In Civil law, the right to privacy was a creation of courts, and one which judges recognized when the facts of cases brought before them seemed to require court intervention. The 1858 Rachel decision of the Tribunal civil de la Seine is credited with first recognizing the right to privacy in Civil law. This case ruled in favour of the sister of a decease actor, Rachel, who brought an action to destroy an image of Rachel on her deathbed that had been published by a newspaper. While United States law holds that the right to privacy is not transmissible, it also holds that the closely related publicity right continues after death. In Canadian Common Law, we also distinguish between the tort of intrusion upon seclusion and that of wrongful misappropriation of personality. However, it is becoming more and more difficult to define the boundary between breaches of privacy on the one hand, and non-authorized commercial uses of someone else’s personality rights on the other. Is this distinction, then, arbitrary or founded? As well, legislators are increasingly protecting certain aspects of privacy through data protection laws. These laws, however, derive from very different underlying principles. Also, the duration of protection in data protection laws differs by jurisdiction, and furthermore, some jurisdictions recognize only a limited management right for estate liquidators and heirs. An examination of the recent evolution of case law in the area of personal rights can shed light on the concept of privacy and its protection after death.

Julia Creet "Data Mining the Deceased: Ownership, Privacy and Family Records"

“Need to Know: Ancestry and the Business of Family” is a documentary that explores the need for family history and the industry that encourages interest and provides records. Shot in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Iceland, “Need to Know” features interviews with amateur and expert genealogists, industry representatives and researchers to elucidate the aggregation of genealogical records and bio-data. The story follows Julia Creet as she explores the roles of the two largest providers in the world, The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints and Ancestry.com and their users and issues of the concentration and aggregation of genealogical data in relation to privacy. Iceland features as the canary in the coalmine, as the world’s first  “braided” database, combining genealogical, genetic and medical records, was privately built and sold offshore.

Julia Creet will screen and discuss relevant clips from the documentary with respect to issues of ownership—“a gray area,” according to one of the founders of Ancestry.com—and the aggregation and braiding of genealogical data.

Margaret Ann Wilkinson "In the privacy of your own family?"

Genealogy may be one of Canada's fastest growing pastimes but personal data protection legislation does not particularly recognize the unique place of information about one's own family and, indeed, often frustrates individuals seeking such knowledge.

Panel 4: Privacy Digital Skills and Education for Children and Youth

Watch the video.

Matthew Johnson “Privacy Pirates: Teaching Privacy Principles to Young Children Through Multimedia”

When we think about the privacy risks that youth face online, we tend to think in terms of teens and tweens oversharing on cell phones and social networks. Increasingly, though, children are facing privacy issues younger and younger: MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wired World survey found that almost a third of students in grades 4 to 6 have a Facebook account. What’s more, children – and parents – don’t necessarily know about the privacy issues that they face online. All but one of Canadian children’s favourite sites contain commercial content or advertising, and the vast majority of them have a variety of ways of gathering and collecting personal information.

What all of this means is that as a society we have a responsibility to teach our kids about how to manage their privacy online. Contrary to what a lot of people think, kids do care about privacy, take active steps to control who sees the content they post, would like more control over who collects their personal information and want to learn more about how to manage their privacy.

This is why MediaSmarts, Canada’s centre for digital and media literacy, is bringing our popular educational game Privacy Pirates to mobile platforms. Aimed at children aged seven to nine, Privacy Pirates teaches kids that their personal information is valuable and that they should be careful about when and with whom they share it. Guided by a friendly mentor, players cross an island inhabited by nine cartoon pirates who each test the player’s knowledge about a different privacy topic.

This talk will look at the research that informed the project, the design and educational considerations in its creation, and the lessons learned in adapting it from a browser-based game to an app for mobile devices.

Project Website: http://mediasmarts.ca/game/privacy-pirates-interactive-unit-online-privacy-ages-7-9

Colin McKay "Digital Adoption in Canada: Observations On How Use and Skills Have Evolved"

Drawing from ten years of qualitative and quantitative research into the adoption of digital tools in Canada, we'll discuss how behaviours, expectations and benefits have evolved.

Karen Louise Smith “Co-Designing Open Badges for Privacy Education with Canadian Youth”

In the fall of 2014, a design team was formed by Hive Toronto, a digital literacy network stewarded by Mozilla. The design team included researchers, practitioners, and 8 teen peer researchers. The major goal of the design team was to prototype 10 open badges and to create the associated curriculum resources for privacy education, relevant to PIPEDA. In brief, Open Badges are a badge image plus metadata that can be shared online to signify learning. This presentation argues that attributes of connected learning, including peer culture, openly networked connections and production centered learning activities, are effective elements for building an empowerment-oriented approach to privacy education in Canada.

This presentation provides an overview of the design team’s experience, which was informed by connected learning as well as the concepts of privacy as contextual integrity, and networked privacy. Major elements of the project included participatory design workshops with teens, interviews with educators, and a knowledge mobilization workshop. The research with teens surfaced many of the privacy implications that are common in their daily lives such as the power imbalances between data creators and data analyzers, the politics of corporate ownership of social media platforms, and the difficulties of experiencing privacy when data is stored globally in the cloud.  Educators such as community center workers and librarians remain challenged by the digital divide and shifting usages of sites and platforms by teens. Overall, this design-oriented project helps to conceptualize why connected learning approaches to privacy education for youth, which incorporates Open Badges, might contribute to building up empowerment-oriented approaches as a component of privacy education in Canada.