There has been a lot written lately about the disturbing trend towards becoming a surveillance society. And the equally disturbing trend for governments to try to interfere with various kinds of communications to squash activity. Mathew Ingram has a good article about that on gigaom.

There is a great hue and cry about this when it occurs in countries that we feel suppress their people – but we are also seeing the trend in North America and Britain – such as the recent British riots and San Fransico’s Bart transit system shutdown of cell service. 

And yet at the . . . [more]

The University of Toronto is hosting a cyber-surveillance event this week that includes the typical academic workshops, as well as an artistic component. The event and the workshop are part The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting, a research project funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

From the press release:

Digitally mediated surveillance is an increasingly prevalent, but still largely invisible, aspect of everyday life. As we work, play and negotiate public spaces, on-line and off, we produce a growing stream of personal digital data of interest to unseen others. CCTV cameras hosted by private and public

This is not about the election – it is about the need to consider this issue carefully before passing any new laws.

Michael Geist and David Fraser (here and here) have written detailed articles on this issue that I concur with and recommend. I want to weigh in as well as this is an important issue. I have a problem with legislation that erodes privacy and requires ISP’s or others to retain information for the sole purpose of government access to it. And when that access is not tempered by the need for a warrant.

Issues include erosion . . . [more]

Surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere these days. They are one of the creeping invasions of privacy that raise difficult issues. Isolated cameras on private homes or businesses controlled by the owner and which retain images for short periods of time are easy to justify on security grounds. On the other hand, massive networks of connected and centrally controlled cameras that track everyone’s every move (the UK for example) and save that information for long periods of time cross the Orwellian threshold.

Some of the questions that don’t appear to have fact based answers include:
– Does camera surveillance really . . . [more]

That’s the title of my newspaper column this week. It talks about a House of Lords report that expresses concern over the U.K.’s extensive closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance network and its growing national DNA database, which contains information even about innocent people.

While the report does not go so far as to say that the U.K. has become an Orwellian state, it does say that “the expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War.”

I can’t reporoduce the article here for . . . [more]

On Monday, November 17, 2008 Dr. Colin J. Bennett, Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, will be speaking at the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto about identity cards in Canada. Details here and in the full press release below the fold. . . . [more]

Boing Boing has a recent post that refers to a day of protest being organized in the EU. Some excerpts:

An international protest against undue surveillance is being held next month on the 11th of October. It is ‘a broad movement of campaigners and organizations is calling on everybody to join action against excessive surveillance by governments and businesses’. We need to get this on the radar for the elections in the USA this year, the EU parliamentary elections next year and many more.

People who constantly feel watched and under surveillance cannot freely and courageously stand up for their . . . [more]

A 2.5 million dollar grant is being given to a group of 8 academic researchers by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Announced today, the grant is to be spent over seven years in the study of how and why average citizens are being watched by public and private organizations. The study is being titled “The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting.” Part of the study will be to look at the flow of surveillance information that is now possible with computer use.

From the Queen’s University press release:

The new project will examine

The most recent issue of the Canadian government’s Weekly Checklist features the 2006 annual report on electronic surveillance from Public Safety Canada.

The report outlines the use of electronic surveillance of private communications by law enforcement agencies to assist in criminal investigations.

Under the Criminal Code, agencies must obtain judicial authorization before conducting the surveillance.The government is required to prepare and present to Parliament an annual report on the use of electronic surveillance.

The 2006 Annual Report covers a five-year period from 2002 to 2006. The Report includes new statistics for the period of January 1, 2006 to December . . . [more]

This is London, an online entertainment guide for the British capital, reports that “(T)he Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality – in the shadow of the author’s former London home”:

“On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move”.

“Orwell’s view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights”.

“The flat’s

C’est «Règlement de compte à OK Corral», mais cette fois, dans les Laurentides. Un conflit classique, presque banal, entre un maire et un journaliste qui serait passé totalement inaperçu n’eut été du fait que la blogosphère québécoise a su faire preuve de solidarité: suite à quelques propos supposément «illégaux» de blogueurs de Saint-Adèle envers certains représentants municipaux de ladite ville, une mise en demeure page 1 et page 2, leur a été adressé leur demandant de cesser 1) leurs activités de publication sur le sujet et 2) de restreindre les commentaires supposés contrevenir au droit. Sauf que, . . . [more]

Earlier this week, Queen’s University researchers released the results of a survey of 9,000 people around the world about their experiences with surveillance and privacy.

“This is believed to be the first cross-cultural study of its kind that explores relationships between attitudes and experiences, and how much people trust corporations and governments to handle personal information, including the sharing of such information with third parties, the researcher says… the survey included nearly 50 questions on participant’s attitudes about issues like consumer surveillance, racial profiling at airports, national ID cards, media coverage of surveillance issues, workplace privacy, knowledge of privacy