Federal Commissioner funds research into surveillance in Canada

As part of its contributions program (Contributions Program 2008-2009 - Backgrounder - Privacy Commissioner of Canada), the Ofice of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is funding a project to look into surveillence in Canada:

Organization: Queen’s University —The Surveillance Project, Department of Sociology

Location: Ontario

Funding amount: $50,000

Project title: Camera Surveillance in Canada: Current Trends

Project description: There is a surprising lack of Canadian research to date on the development of camera surveillance, and the proliferation of surveillance cameras in Canada is occurring without enough oversight or public debate. This project will outline Canadian trends in camera surveillance in public and private spaces by analyzing documentary sources and through interviews with key stakeholders. As part of the project, a final research report will be presented at the International Conference of Data Protection Commissioners in Strasbourg, France (Sept. 2008).

Something like this is sorely needed as police forces and others push for more surveillance of public places, while research in other countries suggest that it just moves crime from one area to another.

Good catch, David Canton, via the Commissioner's blog.

Social sciences research using social media data: Harvard's Privacy Meltdown

This is a really interesting case, and case-study in the complicated privacy and ethical issues of using "person level" social networking information for social sciences research. In this case, researchers "friended" students on Facebook to pull their data into the study. No consent was obtained. The study passed the institutional review board of Harvard, which concluded that getting opt-in consent would not be legally or ethically necessary.

"Alerting students risked 'frightening people unnecessarily,' he says.

'We all agreed that it was not necessary, either legally or ethically,' Mr. Kaufman says."

For the full story, see: Harvard's Privacy Meltdown - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Via Lauren Weinstein.

Personal Health Information Act for Researchers

I was invited to give a presentation to staff and physicians at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax on the impact of the new Personal Health Information Act on researchers and research activities.

For anyone who may be interested, here is a copy of the presentation:

(If the embedding above is not working for you, this link should take you to the presentation: https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpx56cg_32947mwh5hq&interval=30&autoStart=true&loop=true)

Personal Health Information Act and health research

I have been invited to give a presentation to health researchers at Dalhousie, the IWK Health Centre and the Capital District Health Authority on the upcoming Personal Health Information Act and its impact on health research.

For any others who may be interested, here is the presentation:

The bill fell off the order paper of the Nova Scotia legislature when the house rose for the summer, but we are expecting it will be reintroduced sometime this fall.