For the London Free Press – November 12, 2007

Read this on Canoe

Partly in response to concerns from privacy advocates, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) announced it will be restructuring its systems architecture.

At the heart of this restructuring will be the creation of a global data processing centre in Switzerland.

SWIFT, a Belgium-based company, provides messaging services and interface software to the global banking industry in more than 200 countries. SWIFT’s purpose is to act as an intermediary to transmit secure financial information exchanges among financial institutions.

The network’s computing centre is located in the United States. In recent years, there have been concerns SWIFT has disclosed personal information about individuals, including Canadians, to the US government. This move would place international transfer data outside of the immediate access of U.S. authorities.

While this should please privacy advocates in the European Union, it does not appear Canadians will share in this new found protection. SWIFT’s intention is to operate the data centre as an additional facility rather than as a replacement to its U.S. facility.

Under the new system SWIFT will create two message processing zones: Europe, handled by their Swiss facility, and Transatlantic which will continue to be handled at their U.S. facility. The system will be based on the concept that messages within a zone will remain in their region of origin with an aim to addressing concerns expressed by data privacy watchdogs.

SWIFT’s restructuring effort is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2009. The network has secured a safe harbor agreement regarding its U.S. data centre.

In the past, SWIFT has only released vague and generalized statements regarding its compliance with European or Canadian privacy standards.

They have also been unwilling to confirm personal information pertaining to Canadians or Canadian banks has been subject to improper distribution.

The safe harbor agreement amounts to SWIFT volunteering to abide by data protection provisions in compliance with European standards, even while the data remains in the U.S.

If SWIFT were to breach the agreed data protection provisions the Federal Trade Commission could, in theory, intervene. Since the United States can order data on its territory to be handed over, one has to wonder how effective this really is.

Aware of this, SWIFT has attempted to reassure customers of the security of their data, assuring that they have implemented “unique protective measures” as well as receiving “security guarantees” from the U.S. government for the term of the agreement.

This agreement will stay in effect until the new Swiss facility commences operations. There has been no indication whether any protection that Canadian data may be benefiting from would continue after that time.

Concerns over the use of data by SWIFT are not limited to Canada and the European Union. In the U.S. itself, two U.S. bank customers have initiated law suits claiming that their bank transfer information was illegally provided to security authorities by SWIFT.

The U.S. government is attempting to block these lawsuits.

I attended the launch of the Ambassador London program this week. It is a grassroots campaign to let the world know that London, Ontario, Canada is a great place to live, work, and do business.

In typical Canadian fashion, we tend to be too modest about our accomplishments, advantages, virtues, and successes. London has a lot to offer. To learn more, take a look at the video (which barely scratches the surface), the Ambassador London website and blog, and the resources it links to.

Watch the video (A hi-res version is available on the web site)

CNET has an article entitled When virtual legal chickens come home to roost that talks about litigation by a company that claims another is making unauthorized copies of its products, and making use of its trade-marks. Nothing unusual in that – but this is about products that exist only within Second Life.

There is debate over to what extent, if at all, the law should apply to virtual worlds. This will prove to be an interesting area to watch over the next few years.

Read the CNET article

Read an article I recently wrote on the topic

The just released Industry Canada commissioned study on P2P downloading has been getting a lot of attention in the press and blogosphere. Essentially the study found that P2P music downloading has not caused a decrease in music sales. Indeed, it showed that those who download a lot tend to buy more.

More food for thought on the debate over giving away things to make money can be found in a post by Chris Anderson entitled Free is more complicated than you think.

He refers to a column by Scott Adams (Dilbert) and concludes that making a book available for free can help with visibility and sales for authors and topics that are not well known, but may not work that way for well known authors. So, as in many things in life, the answer to the dilemma is “it depends”.

Read Michael Geist’s comment on the Industry Canada study

Read Michael’s follow up post

Read Chris Anderson’s article

For the London Free Press – November 5, 2007

Read this on Canoe

The recent case of Hummingbird versus Mustafa has brought the discovery process in a civil lawsuit into the 21st century. It recognizes that in some instances the electronic version of a document can be more important than the paper version.

The case centred on the production of a hard drive, and it’s associated “metadata.” Metadata is data about data. It includes, for example, details that reside in a computer file telling when a document was created, who created it, and who edited it. In this case the defendant asked for a mirror copy — a copy of the entire hard drive that contained the documents that had been produced — to get the related metadata.

The defendant objected to producing the drive, because they felt the request was too broad, and would provide access to information that was irrelevant to the proceeding.

The court ordered the defendant to produce the data, but considered the related costs involved.

Extracting only the relevant or requested documents would take more than two weeks, and cost $30,000. The production of a mirror image of the hard drive would cost a mere fraction of that amount, and expedite the process.

The court left the final decision up to the parties. The requesting party was to pay for the copy of the hard drive in its entirety. If Hummingbird — the party ordered to produce the hard drive — wanted, it could redact or edit the hard drive to filter out information that was not relevant, but at its own cost.

This means the courts have come to realize the value of metadata, and recognize it as a document available for production at discoveries.

The real value of the metadata is that it provides a virtual time/date stamp on the materials, and tracks any changes made. It can also provide information as to whether the hard drive has been altered, which is not possible with a paper copy of a document.

The way we create and exchange information has been changing, and the decision should not come as a surprise. The definition of the word “document” within the rules of civil procedure includes “data and information in electronic form.” The data provided on a hard drive is more than just the written document itself, but also the provenance of the document — when was it created, modified or deleted.

The judge stated in his decision that while the exchange of paper copies of documents may be sufficient for most litigation, here it was insufficient, and the rules permitted a broader understanding of the word “document.”

The use of metadata may not be appropriate for all situations, and may not even come to the minds of litigants.

It does appear, however, that asking for and producing metadata is a legitimate request during discoveries.

The value of this kind of information is in its infancy. Lawyers and litigants are still sorting out the changes e-discovery may make in presenting and exchanging data in the litigation process.

A large portion of our downtown was without power yesterday as a result of a watermain break that caused a large sinkhole and in turn damaged the electrical system.

We don’t realize how dependent we are on power until it fails. Most of us stayed in the office for the morning, thinking it might come back on – trying to do something productive. Other than catching up on some paper continuing ed material, everything required access to a computer system. Its a frustrating way to spend the day.

Of course the nespaper today has the expected article about crumbling infrastructure, and the municipality wanting provincial/federal funds to bring it up to date. That seems to be a North American wide issue.

Read Free Press coverage of the event