Earlier today, Jennifer Stoddart, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, presented her office’s annual report on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for 2012. Last month, she was making her case for reforming and strengthening the Act to better protect Canadians’ privacy in the digital age.

All of these activities will not surprise anyone.

What is less well known is that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner also funds a whole series of research initiatives. Recently, it published a compendium of results from many of these projects:

From tapping our smart phones to transfer funds, to

. . . [more]

Many Slaw readers will be familiar with the guides and resources made available at Catherine Best‘s LegalResearch.org. Over the past 15 years, Catherine has invested thousands of hours into this project, making it one of the most respected (and fluid) resources for introducing legal research here in Canada. “Best’s Guide to Canadian Legal Research” has helped to introduce an entire generation of researchers to the topic. I would also consider it to be one of our earliest examples of a digital guide published entirely over the web.

So I’m very proud to announce the re-launch of this . . . [more]

The British Columbia Court of Appeal recently (May 30) released a practice directive dealing with the citation of authorities. Based on the McGill Guide, as you’d imagine, it sets out in detail what the court (the directive would have “Court”) requires, down to the level of periods and point size. Importantly, it recognizes the supremacy and sufficiency of the neutral citation, noting that “[a]dditional (parallel) citations are optional.” The directive also encourages the use of hyperlinked citations and requires citation to paragraph number rather than page number, inferentially acknowledging the death of print versions.

The comparable directive from the . . . [more]

Two resources I’d like to share with you, each touching on the topic of flipped classrooms. The first is Matt Homann’s 6 minute contribution at lexthink.1 where he talks about disrupting CLE. Moving beyond technology supported learning, Matt makes some interesting points on the physical structure of learning environments, telling us to “flip that classroom!”. (Click into this post to view the embedded materials.)

The second piece is from Rich McCue’s recent presentation at UVic on Flipped Classroom Benefits. The preceding link routes to a summary of Rich’s presentation, and his prezi slides are embedded below:

I would consider . . . [more]

With 10 years of experience as Privacy Commissioner of Canada behind her, and her term reaching its end, Jennifer Stoddart has released a report titled "The Case for Reforming the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act" which describes how to modernize Canada's private-sector privacy legislation to ensure it is able to meet the current and future challenges of the digital age and protect Canadians’ right to privacy.

It seems that law enforcement agencies are commonly using the records of people’s cell phones to establish where the people (or at least their phones) were at material times.

A US court decision has recently refused to admit such evidence, as not being properly based on science. One expert quoted in the article calls this use ‘junk science’.

Have there been attacks on the use of cell phone records in Canada on the ground that they are not reliable indicators of location? Should there be?

The US case referred to tracking by use of the relation of the phone to . . . [more]

Back in March I lamented, along with many others, the announcement that Google Reader is being discontinued. As I wrote, I have been exploring the use of Outlook for RSS. I also said that I dislike it, and my opinion has not changed. My team uses RSS to selectively gather information from specific feeds that we then pass along to others. We have found a replacement for Google Reader and a new method for sharing that Slawyers may be interested in.

Jennifer Merchant, one of the fantastic library team members at the Field Law Libraries, was tasked with . . . [more]

The Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (known as CPSR) has decided to wind up, having pushed for responsible – and notably peaceful – uses of information technology for over 30 years. As they say in their notice, back in 1981 there was no one else with their message. Now there are many – though the task remains to be done.

As the official announcement states:

CPSR was launched in 1981 in Palo Alto, California, to question the
computerization of war in the United States via the Strategic Computing
Initiative to use artificial intelligence in war, and, soon after, the

. . . [more]

This ars technica article points out that Microsoft scans Skype message contents for signs of fraud, which means that Microsoft can read them. While Skype messages may be encrypted to prevent third parties from reading them, that apparently does not apply to Microsoft. 

This is not just a Microsoft issue. Other providers of communication and data storage may also be able to do that for certain services (Facebook, Google). A close read of various service provider terms of use and privacy policies show they have the option to review data. It is usually intended as a way to control things . . . [more]

When does the law require you to follow up an email to see if it was received? Is that a matter of prudence only, i.e. if you really have to know, you had better follow up? Are you liable for negligence for not following up, in important cases, or all cases, if the message was not received?

A recent Swiss case – in the Federal Supreme Court – held that senders of emails have a duty to verify receipt in almost all cases. On the facts of the case, the result may be OK: an agent for a taxpayer emailed . . . [more]

Do you know of any means by which prosecutorial documents – like a notice of compliance or notice of laying of charges – can be delivered electronically? If a regulator, for example, wanted to require one of its regulated bodies to appear at a hearing, how can it ensure that the addressee has received the notice?

The regulator would have an email address of the regulated body, but assume that there is no contract or statute that allows for ‘originating process’ to be presumed to be delivered if delivered electronically.

I am aware that the Rules of Civil Procedure allow . . . [more]

These are notes from a panel discussion by George Waggott, Partner, McMillan LLP, Toronto, Nina Barakzai, Sky Media, UK, Lyndsey Wasser, Partner, McMillan LLP, Toronto, and Lewis Gottheil, Counsel, CAW Canada, Toronto, on April 16, 2013 at the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association National Spring Conference 2013 in Toronto.

Note: these are my selected notes from this session; any inaccuracies or omissions are my own and not the speakers’. This session included a review of case law which was largely not included here.

 

The Social Network: What Should Employers Do?

Panelists:

George Waggott, Partner, McMillan
Nina . . . [more]