The U.K. organization Privacy International, together with the U.S.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, have published their 2007 privacy rankings for European and some other countries. In their judgement Canada has in the last year slipped from the best category (“significant protections and safeguards”) to the middle category (“some safeguards but weakened protection”). They provide a detailed analysis that forms the basis for this judgement.

Clearly intended to shock, the report now puts the United States into the worst possible category, that of an “endemic surveillance society.”

This report is the result of serious analysis and deserves careful attention. My only . . . [more]

The announcement below was sent out today. Louise Hamel, Manager at the Judges’ Library, tells me there is new content which has also been translated into French. The real news, though, is the official new design of the site. Congratulations to the Judges’ Library!

I am pleased to announce that the Guide to Ontario Courts www.ontariocourts.on.ca has been re-launched.

This revitalized website was reorganized and updated in response to user feedback on content and design, and in consultation with the Office of each court. We have developed what we hope will be a more user friendly = website with each

I thought it would be interesting to make use of CanLII’s new ability to sort search results by “most-cited,” imperfect though it is, in order to examine Supreme Court of Canada cases.

There are 4160 SCC judgments in CanLII’s database — a complete set from the beginning of 1985 up to the present, and an incomplete set earlier than that. Essentially, the pool from which to draw is that of all cases in the last 22 years. I took the most-cited 1000 cases as my sample and first simply listed them in rank order, along with some information about each. . . . [more]

It is that time of year. A nod to Arjun Thomas for pointing out the “12 Predictions for 2008” from CMS Watch. Predictions for 2008 include such things as Web 2.0 exhaustion, Facebook backlash at work and productization of search platforms. . . . [more]

Here’s another reason why cases may get missed, even by better researchers.

CanLII’s privacy policy  para. 14 states

14. In order to limit prejudice to individuals that could result from free publication of documents containing personal information, CanLII is actively involved in advancing standards and policies that promote optimal protection of the privacy of people who appear before the courts.

It seems that CanLII, under this policy, is changing the name of the plaintiff in sexual assault cases to initials even though the plaintiff’s full name is in the title of proceedings in the pleadings and the reasons. This includes . . . [more]

Yesterday’s Sunday Times ((From the Murdoch empire in London, not the NYC one)) was reporting on Lexis’s parent’s plans for the legal market – and they want to focus far beyond the mere $18 billion plus market for legal research and associated applications in 2004.

They report that the average lawyer is going to spend almost their morning using Lexis products:

“Two or three years ago, Lexis Nexis was a legal research company, full stop,” Sir Crispin Davis said. “By and large, a typical lawyer would spend half an hour a day using our products. Now it is more like . . . [more]

Like some giant ocean liner or oil tanker, Google is slowly turning the ship to a different heading, and now it’s watch out Wikipedia and all the little “–pedias” that are bobbing on the net. The Official Google Blog reveals that the big plex isn’t content with serving you up your own data but plans to write its own — or, rather, have you write it for them in good Web 2.0 fashion — and deliver it when you search. The project, now in private beta (i just love writing that bit of insider jargon), is called knol, which . . . [more]

Today’s Globe and Mail article “Ottawa, don’t pull the plug on superb website” is about the shutting down of the Canadian Health Network, an online source of reliable Canadian health information. The strength of this article is its comparison of the Canadian Health Network with the new Healthy Canadians website. Interesting. . . . [more]

Amlaw Media announced today, that Toronto’s own Great Librarian David Whelan will inaugurate a Podcast on Legal Information and Technology.

In an interview with the inimitable Monica Bay, David will talk about”RSS: Simply Powerful.” The interview covers how “really simple syndication” tools can help legal professionals easily track information they need to practice law effectively, by using RSS to monitor favorite news sources, blogs, and Web sites.

Give it a listen here . . . [more]

It was always my understanding that QuickLaw’s Canadian case law coverage was equal, if not superior, to LexisNexis’. If you too were operating under that assumption, then the following may surprise you… 

I had found a reference to a case using the Nadin-Davis Sentencing Digest. Unfortunately, no citation was provided; it did, however, list the name of the case, the date (1986), the judge and the level of court. The digest entry also mentioned that the case had been appealed. So I set about to search for the case. 

I turned first to QuickLaw. I searched by case name and . . . [more]

There are reports today that Wikipedia is about to start paying contributors for certain content. This represents a break from their roots as an all-volunteer project. The program, funded by a single donation right now, aims to improve the quality of the illustrations on the site – that’s currently the only thing they have plans to pay people for.

I’ve always found Wikipedia a good place to go for images, and have never felt a lack of good illustrations to be a shortcoming, but I’m for anything that could improve the site.

In other Wikipedia news, more schools have jumped . . . [more]

The Department of Justice Canada appears to have recently started to offer PDF, bilingual versions of key federal statutes on their site here.

An example is the Divorce Act current to about 2 weeks ago, available in HTML (English only or French only) and PDF (containing side by side English and French).

The PDF versions are current to the same date as the HTML version.

However, one criticism – if I may – is that the PDF version does not have the currency date on its face. As such, once printed, the reader does not necessarily know how current . . . [more]