You may have read about the Supreme Court of Canada deciding Rogers can be paid its costs for telling a copyright owner the identity of movie downloading customers. What isn’t talked about is the notice and notice system that puts this in motion.

A summary of the Rogers v Voltage decision is here. Omar has written about this on Slaw as well.

This is a complex and controversial issue. The essence is that sections 41.25 and 41.26 of the Copyright Act allow the owner of a copyright (eg a movie studio) to create a notice to send to people . . . [more]

The Court of Justice of the European Union is hearing arguments on whether the right to be forgotten under EU law (notably based on the Spanish case from 2014 that started all this discussion) should be applied globally by search engines. Here is The Guardian’s report.

You will notice that the report closes with a mention of the Canadian Supreme Court decision (in Equustek, not named) where the court made its takedown order against Google globally. I did not think the SCC dealt well with the arguments being raised at the CJEU, namely that if France, or Canada, . . . [more]

The Guardian reports us that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is close to adopting a new authentication standard that can replace passwords. This would be some kind of “who you are” (biometric) or “what you have” (token, phone to receive code) method of authentication, rather than a “what you know” password. (I suppose a code sent to your phone is what you know, but you know it only case by case, because you have another communications channel.)

Some web services already work this way, as the article notes – or does in special cases, as when one is logging . . . [more]

The 2017 Ontario Accessibility Compliance and Enforcement Report is now available online and outlines the activities undertaken by the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario in 2017 to oversee compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and its accessibility standards.

The report explains the results of the December 31st compliance reporting obligations of obligated organizations, and the various audits and inspections conducted by the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario in 2017. Overall, the report clearly indicates that there is a lot of enforcement work still needing to be done for Ontario to reach the goal of becoming an accessible province . . . [more]

Written wholly by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, and PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario

In February 2018, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics released a report that summarized issues and recommendations concerning the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

The report was authored by Bob Zimmer, the Chair of the Standing Committee, and presented to the House of Commons in the first session of the 42nd Parliament.

More specifically, the report was generated following the decision to undertake a review of PIPEDA. This review began February 14, 2017; it consisted of . . . [more]

On Friday, January 26, 2018, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) released a draft of their position regarding online reputation and on how Canadians can better protect their online privacy and rights.

The draft report is the result of a 2016 consultation on online reputations. Through this consultation, the OPC was soliciting input from interested stakeholders about new and innovative ways to protect reputational privacy. Reputation and Privacy is one of the OPC’s four strategic privacy priorities. A summary of the 28 submissions received is posted online on the OPC website.

Summarizing the report

The draft . . . [more]

The US Department of Justice has declared that President Trump’s tweets are official statements of the President – at least in one case. In another, mentioned in the same ABA story, it is saying that they are not, at least to the point that the President can block people from his Twitter account.

What is your view? Are the posts subject to freedom of information laws and official records laws, so that they have to be preserved, they have to be accessible on request, they have to respect privacy rights?

There is a difference between politicians in government with official . . . [more]

OK, I’m going to talk about AI and unauthorized practice in just a second, but first…

Who can resist those stories with the teen genius? The wunderkind trope. That Dutch teen with the Boomy McBoomface contraption setting out to heal our polluted oceans. That Mark Zuckerberg fella circa 2004, with the other face thingy.

Who is not in awe of an uncalloused mind lit by bedazzling precociousness and disarmingly naive ambition?

Take Joshua Browder, for instance. He’s surely that kid—our teen wonder—for legal automation. He taught himself to code at age 12 and first came to glory two years . . . [more]

At the Can-Tech (formerly known as IT.Can) conference this week Mike Brown of Isara Corporation spoke about quantum computing and security. Within a few short years quantum computing will become commercially viable. Quantum computing works differently than the binary computing we have today. It will be able to do things that even today’s super computers can’t.

For the most part that is a good thing. The downside is that quantum computers will be able to break many current forms of encryption. So it will be necessary to update current encryption models with something different.

That may not be a simple . . . [more]

To reduce the risk of hackers coming into government database through the Internet, the Government of Singapore has required all public service computers to be cut off from the Internet. Public servants are allowed to use the net from separate computers that are not connected to their government data.

Yes, that means that a lot of people will have two unconnected computers on the go at the same time.

This article explains the process and the reasons, in the words of the Prime Minister. who called the move “absolutely necessary.” He does admit in the article that if a . . . [more]

Addison Cameron-Huff is an active legal force in the Toronto tech community focused exclusively on the blockchain and internet startup space. He can often be found speaking at events and previously co-chaired OsgoodePD’s Critical and Emerging issues in Blockchain Law. He recently joined Decentral Inc., the company founded by Ethereum’s co-founder, Anthony Di Iorio.

As the world reacts to the uncertainty of cryptocurrency offerings, such as initial coin offerings, initial token offerings and sales of securities of cryptocurrency investment funds, many startups in the community are having discussions on what the future of Canadian innovation in the cryptocurrency . . . [more]

This blog post is entirely written by Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, for First Reference Talks. Christina is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Western Ontario with a focus on privacy law.

On August 21, 2017, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada released an informative piece regarding cookieless identification and tracking of devices. Interestingly, there is a new technique called, “fingerprinting”, which can work to enable website operators, advertising companies, and other organizations to track users – even when they clear their cookies. The document explains the implications and what people can do to protect their . . . [more]