Canadian Privacy Laws & Online Networking

A report form the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has found that facebook breaches Canadian privacy law. The report responds to 24 complaints, and while most were unfounded or resolved there are four cases that are of concern.

Here's a bit from the executive summary (bolding by me):

On the remaining subjects of third-party applications, account deactivation and deletion, accounts of deceased users, and non-users’ personal information, the Assistant Commissioner likewise found Facebook to be in contravention of the Act and concluded that the allegations were well-founded. In these four cases, there remain unresolved issues where Facebook has not yet agreed to adopt her recommendations. Most notably, regarding third-party applications, the Assistant Commissioner determined that Facebook did not have adequate safeguards in place to prevent unauthorized access by application developers to users’ personal information, and furthermore was not doing enough to ensure that meaningful consent was obtained from individuals for the disclosure of their personal information to application developers.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

It's something I rarely think about as I generally avoid apps, but it makes me wonder how many third-party applications are created just to harvest users' information.

CBC has a good quote from Jordan Plener, the UOttawa student who filed the complaint on behalf of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

"For a hangman application, for example, there is no use for the developer to know where the person lives or have their personal email address."

cbc.ca

That sounds on the money to me - but really, should we have any expectation of privacy at all on facebook? Our Minister Van Loan doesn't think so.

What do you think? Is it time we give up on protecting our personal information online?

The Burrard Bridge and Cringeworthy Comments

Disclaimer: This isn't about the issue. It's an issue the issue raises that has to do with discussion, communication, and community.

The Burrard bridge bicycle lane trial has begun.

I'm not from Vancouver, I don't bike across the bridge, and I'm not really entitled to much of an opinion as I haven't examined the plans, read the council minutes, or really paid much attention at all - until today.

You see, every local-news outlet has a story on the bike-lane'd bridge. And in today's everybody-has-a-voice web2.0 social media mad world, that means every story has a comment thread a mile long.

In theory, enabling comments and discussion fosters debate and communication.

In practice, comment-sections quickly degenerate into useless strings of spin and vitriol only occasionally related to the originating article.

Insults are flung with wild abandon, key-messages drown out discussion, and somehow (I really don't understand it yet) the least intelligent among us manage to find their way onto the internet and whip out angry diatribes that only occasionally make sense.

It's depressing to think that those posting are actually the listening/watching/reading public. So, rather than be depressed I imagine this:

Massive banks of computers in a smoke-filled room, cigarette buts dangling from ashtrays on the corners of redbull-strewn desks. Each computer is staffed by a moron with a script, shit-posting to beat hell, while a balding man with dark circles under his eyes paces circles in front of a giant set of monitors looking for news to hijack.

It's like a telethon to save PBS, but instead of red-dwarf reruns we get the daily news. And instead of saving PBS the point is this is an intricate plot to degrade public dialogue to the point where it doesn't make sense to have a public dialogue at all.

I like to think this intricate plan is funded by the military-industrial-complex (do we even call it that now that it's really the everything-complex?) to weaken the public's role in any sort of policy development or implementation.

I then like to use that vision to get really pissed off, curse the lack of public spaces where debate and discussion occur in Canada, and then I do my best to either:

A. Write a coherent post engaging with the few people actually participating in some sort of discussion, then vote-up our posts with a host of fake accounts.

B. Respond to comments in earnest, with sourced arguments, but in the wrong comment thread.

Option B is way more fun, but usually just gets ignored.

The moral of the story is this, "The internet is too easy."

Or it isn't.

The most important thing you'll read today

Be cool. Enjoy some insight instead of suffering through old-media's premature postmortem.

Cyrus Farivar's recommended reading - Iranian Election Aftermath.

Confusing Citizenship Changes

Proposed federal regulations unveiled in mid-December seek to prevent children born to or adopted by Canadians outside the country from passing citizenship on to their children if they are also born abroad.

Citizenship changes could create 'inferior' citizens-via thevancouversun

Ok, but isn't this is the same government that has allowed children adopted/born abroad to automatically become citizens? It's just weird, I didn't know we were so freaked out about citizens of convenience that we would allow a sort of tier system. Shouldn't we be a bit more concerned with creating a class of stateless people than with the potential that some might not have the strongest loyalty to our flag and queen PM?

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You're not the Boss of me!

Gaza offensive will continue despite UN call for ceasefire: Israel

via the CBC

How often does a member state continue an invasion/offensive/whateveryouwanttocallit?

How much is $700bn?

Enough to do some leveling of the playing field.
How much is $700bn? From Duncan Green @ Oxfam

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Giving Candy to Babies

They Like it.




A good, if a little awkward, piece on the ballillion balaialout.

Ignore it, It'll go away.

I'm working on a dream list of eco-exhibitors and speakers for a proposed conference / event, so I'm surfing around chekcing in with the usual suspects and what do I find at the wonderful desmogblog but this:

Sloughing off a court decision which held that a proposed Imperial Oil (i.e. Exxon Canada) oilsands project is an environmental hazard in the waiting, the Conservative Cabinet of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a green light to the development yesterday.

Canadian Government, Media Officially Unconcerned About Environment | DeSmogBlog

The story can be found in the business section of the globenmail, because really that's where belongs...riiiight...

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Corruption

We all face it in our day to day lives. Heck, I know some people who thrive because of it.

I find it both and liberating, depending on which side of the corruption fence I find myself on, and which side I find whomever I'm trying to deal with on.

A few weeks ago I would have happily bribed a corrupt staffer to get a replacement ID for my fiancé right then and there instead of having to wait what will probably amount to months as we jump through bureaucratic hoops. I know it's right that we actually prove who we are before we get official photo ID to support our claim, but it sure is frustrating when you actually are who you say you are and you can't do a damn thing about it except wait. and wait... and wait...

Trevor Metz has a good article about corruption and the dynamics of being a small-business owner in China over at cbc.ca. Just as interesting, although a bit more dramatic, is Tropa de Elite. It's a great Brazilian movie about cops, BOPE, gangsters, and corruption.

It's an intense movie that looks at the lines drawn between right and wrong. I'm thankful I don't ever deal with anything as stressful as the police, special-forces, and gangsters do in the flavelas of Rio, but it really does make one thing about where they draw the line.

I work in post-secondary education, so I see a boatload of bureaucracy in my day-to-day life. I generally approach my job with the goal of doing the right thing for people instead of the right thing for policy, which on occasion gets me into trouble. Not the kind of murdered-in-a-flavela trouble from Tropa de Elite, just some finger-wagging and a little admonition.

I don’t like to think of myself as corrupt, but I probably am in a very mild-mannered sort of way. I’ll sometimes bump a low-priority item up my list if it comes from a friend, or if regardless of source the request is accompanied by a nice cup of coffee. I know lots of other people do it too. So where does it switch from a favour to a bribe?

Is it when it hurts someone? If so how does one assess hurt?

Is it when it becomes the norm instead of the exception?

Is it when it becomes a wrench in the gears of policy?

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Best Vancouver Blog

No, it has nothing to do with social-network marketing, guerilla-gardening, drupal, the Canucks, porn, pot, or fashion.

David Eby's Blog - The Vancouver 2010 Olympics, displacement and homelessness blog brings a whole lot of context to what we hear about the games, human rights, and civic politics.

It's must-read material because it's one of the few sources of legitimate commentary in a town gone five-ring-mad.

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Requiem for a TV News Career

An excellent article:
Say What You Will (Requiem for a TV News Career)
And a new blog to subscribe to:

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Le Citizen Journalism

France has brought in a new law that forbids ordinary citizens from distributing video or images showing acts of violence. Not that I'm a fan of violence or anything, but the story caught my eye because of what it means to citizen journalism there.

The law sets up fines of up to 75,000 euros and up to five years of prison time for those found to be distributing images of some offenses - stuff like:

• Torture
• Acts of barbarity
• Violence committed by an agent of the state in the exercise of his duties

That last one is particularly troubling n'est pas?

The law is specifically targeted at happy-slapping videos, but groups like Reporters Without Borders are concerned that the law is so broadly written that it poses a great threat to the safeguard against abuse of authority that is citizen journalism.

Images and video are understandably crucial for television news, but I'm not sure that we actually need to see violence to be informed of its existence. I for one don't really like seeing the stuff, but I think the fact that individuals risk their own safety to expose things like torture and brutality speaks to our collective hope for a peaceful existence.

Banning the distribution of videos and photos like this deals a heavy blow to ordinary people fighting for social justice. It makes one wonder what France has to hide.

BCIT Magazine January 11 2007

IGNORE THIS UNTIL I FIGURE OUT HOW NOT TO JUMP THE GUN.

As we've previously covered, I'm the assistant instructor for the Broadcast-Journalism program at BCIT this term.

In honour of that please enjoy:



The students this year are talented and bright - pretty much just like every year. It is a constant pleasure and privilege to work with this group and the students currently in first year.

MVB