David Canton is a business lawyer and trade-mark agent with a practice focusing on technology issues and technology companies.
Bill Gates acknowledged in a talk to a gathering of 15,000 computer security experts that keeping information secure is the tech industry’s most formidable challenge.
My post from yesterday showed how important it is to keep things secure. So yes, its not easy, but organizations need to keep on top of it.
Wired Magazine has an article entitled “Your Secret is Out” that shows the business cost of data breaches. Its higher than one might think – and good reason for business to do their best to avoid data breaches.
Recent data breaches have brought this issue more into the public eye. I expect Canada will at some point join the jurisdictions that require businesses to disclose data leaks to the public.
February Wired magazine articles are online – but this one does not seem to have made the online version. So while this won’t do justice to the magazine’s graphics, here are a few of the stats.
Cost to company per missing record: $182
That includes $54 for incident response – such as notifications, discounted or free services, legal and investigation costs; $98 for loss of existing and potential customers; and $30 for lost productivity.
Consumer Reaction to data breach
19% terminate service; 40% more consider termination; 27% more are concerned. That leaves only 14% that are not concerned.
How the personal data was lost
35% lost laptop or device; 21% third party or outsource breach; 19% lost backup; the rest divided between misplaced paper records, inside job, and hackers.
Anyone who heard about the recent newspaper articles saying Canada is such a hotbed of movie piracy that studios are considering delaying Canadian debuts should read Michael Geist’s article in the Toronto Star that refutes the claims.
Michael’s blog post starts by saying:
My weekly Law Bytes column examines recent claims that Canada has become the world’s leading source of movie piracy. The column finds that a closer examination of the industry’s own data reveals that the claims are based primarily on fiction rather than fact, featuring unsubstantiated and inconsistent claims about camcording, exaggerations about its economic harm, and misleading critiques of Canadian law.
David Canton – for the London Free Press – February 3, 2007
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive of the European Commission came into force in the United Kingdom Jan. 2.
The directive makes electronics manufacturers there legally responsible for the financial costs of recycling and disposal of their electronic waste.
Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes products such as computers, household electronics and cellphones. Electronics contain potentially harmful substances such as lead, mercury, cadmium and chromium. There is a problem with how to properly dispose of these.
When electronic waste is incinerated or put in a landfill, these substances can contaminate the surrounding land, air and water. And as the electronics industry continues to boom, more of these products will need disposal in an environmentally sound manner.
A 2004 study by the Nova Scotia Resource Recovery Fund Board estimated that within five years, electronic waste in Canada would grow by 11 per cent.
Although slower than their European counterparts, there have been some attempts by Canadian politicians to deal with this problem.
In 2004, federal, provincial, and territorial environment ministers adopted 12 principles for “electronic products stewardship” to assist jurisdictions in the development of electronic waste disposal programs. In support of these principles, a list of recommended electronic waste products was provided.
However, provincial regulations differ across the country.
Nova Scotia, for instance, has developed a program modeled upon the province’s successful paint recycling initiative. The program requires producers of electronic equipment to take responsibility for their products by paying collection, refurbishing and recycling costs. If not willing to pay these costs, the manufacturers must allow consumers to return electronic waste to them for recycling.
In Ontario, electronic waste disposal has yet to get rolling. The Ontario Waste Diversion Act allows the environment minister to designate waste for which a diversion program is to be established. Electronic waste was so designated in late 2004.
Waste Diversion Ontario, a corporation created under the Act, commissioned a consultation plan for the implementation and operation of such a program. Overall, the study opined it should be producers, not consumers, who bear the cost of electronic waste, but the issue has not yet been definitively dealt with.
If you have electronic waste to dispose of, find out what your municipality offers, rather than just putting it in the trash. The City of London, for example, operates an electronics recycling depot at its landfill.
I was recently tagged by David Fraser of the Canadian Privacy Law Blog to disclose five things you may not know about me – something that has been circulating around the blogosphere.
1. I was a Computer Science major before law school – although I’d be hard pressed to program Fortran, Cobol, or Macro 10 any more.
2. While going through school I worked in my father’s business – a precast concrete plant.
3. I spent several years as in-house counsel with Canada Trust, many of them advising its IT department, including on some of the early online banking issues, and Y2K.
4. Like David, I like to write – hence the blog, a weekly newspaper article, and a book called Legal Landmines in E-Commerce . Writing certainly won’t pay the bills though – so it has to be strategic. (Last time I checked none of my writing has been quite as lucrative as John Grisham, or JK Rowling.)
5. I do stained glass as a hobby – although its hard to find a lot of time to do that. Here’s one that’s in my office.
Tag, your it – Michael Fitzgibbon of Thoughts From a Management Lawyer
The Federal Court has fined a company for selling counterfeit Microsoft software. Its not unusual for courts to punish a business that sells software it is not licensed to sell – but in this case punitive damages were awarded, and the individual behind the company was held liable as well.
In most cases courts don’t look behind corporations to make their owners/directors/executives liable. This illustrates that courts won’t hesitate to do so where the conduct is felt to be severe.
From an article in the London Free Press:
Microsoft Canada has won a $700,000 award against a Montreal company, that bought and re-sold counterfeit software, in a Federal Court decision that experts say is tailored to send a clear message to counterfeiters.
“I am satisfied that the defendants’ conduct was outrageous and that Microsoft is entitled to . . . damages,” Federal Court Justice Sean Harrington wrote in his decision.
Unless otherwise stated, all original material created by David Canton included in this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
