That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.   It reads as follows:

That was the title of a presentation I attended this morning at the London TechAlliance breakfast club series.

David Ciccarelli of Voices.com was the presenter. He is well qualified to present, as he has built his business using these methods. Voices.com is interesting in itself. It is essentially a job mart for voice actors that puts together voice actors with those needing their services. As you will see from their web site, they have an impressive client list.

Take a look at this blog entry entitled Quick ways to get fired as a lawyer.  Even though these may seem to be obvious things not to do, the author claims to have witnessed them all.

For the London Free Press – May 11, 2009

Read this on Canoe

In R. v. Patrick, released by the Supreme Court of Canada last month, the court considered whether one has a reasonable expectation of privacy over the contents of garbage once it’s put out at the curb.

The issue arose from the defendant’s contention that police breached his constitutional right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure when it took his garbage bags.

Police suspected the defendant was operating an ecstasy lab, so they seized bags of garbage he had placed at the rear of his property beside a public alley. It’s notable that police actually had to reach over the property line to obtain the garbage bags.

The Supreme Court ultimately held that the defendant had abandoned his privacy interest when he placed the garbage bags for collection where they were accessible to any passerby.

In assessing the reasonableness of a privacy interest, the court said it should look at the “totality of the circumstances” and indicated that its decision might have been different if the garbage had been on a porch or in a garage.

Indeed, in determining whether someone has “abandoned” property, the Supreme Court said courts should consider both the location of the discarded property and the intention of the privacy claimant.

Some privacy advocates prefer the dissenting but concurring opinion in the case, which said there should be a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before somebody’s trash can be perused, but this dissent wasn’t the opinion of the court as a whole.

The dissenting opinion was that household waste left for disposal is only “abandoned” for the specific purpose of reaching the waste disposal system. Therefore, the homeowner’s privacy interest in regard to personal information was not abandoned when trash was put out at the curb.

In any event, the dissenting opinion held that there was evidence of reasonable suspicion before the police obtained the garbage bags.

It’s important to point out that R. v. Patrick is a criminal case, so strictly speaking it does not apply to civil matters. But until a court decides otherwise, it is reasonable to assume that the same logic would apply to civil matters.

In the criminal context, the decision puts restrictions on how police investigations should be conducted to ensure any evidence obtained will be admissible in court.

For the average person or business, Patrick simply reinforces the need to be careful what you throw out. Because, depending on where your garbage ends up, it could be used by anybody — and you could be left with no legal recourse.

If you’re disposing of sensitive information that’s to specific privacy obligations, privacy laws dictate that it must be destroyed first.

But the bottom line in Patrick is this: if you’re going to throw out any sensitive information, destroy it first.

I was just about to write a post on how this is just another example of stuff we can’t get in Canada – and discovered that Steven Matthews already commented on this in a Slaw post.  He says in part:

I would really love to have a Kindle. really.  And this story from the Silicon Alley Insider isn’t making things any better.  See Dan Frommer’s live note that “Kindle sales are now 35% of book sales when Kindle editions are available.”

You would think this kind of statement would jump start some action! For publishers, for consumers, and especially for Amazon to expand their offering…  to say…  north of the border?  I’m also not fussy about the screen size. I’d take a hand-me-down for that matter.

What I am losing my patience with, is waiting years every time an innovative wired gadget comes along.  Do I really need to have a Rogers Kindle for this to come to pass in Canada? Did the Canadian-lag on the iPhone help anyone?

We seem to get the “latest” cellphones one generation behind the latest in other parts of the world.  Services like Hulu are blocked at the border, and various services by providers such as Google and Microsoft are US only.

For the London Free Press – May 4, 2009

Read this on Canoe

The new European Data Retention Directive requires Internet service providers in Europe to retain information about all e-mails and VOIP calls made by all customers for at least one year.

The directive also allows police and many other public bodies access to that data.

The European Parliament originally passed the directive in 2006 as an anti-terrorism measure in the wake of the 2005 London bombings.

Originally, the law required phone companies to maintain records detailing where and when phone calls were made. It has been expanded since to require providers to log all Internet-based communications.

Some critics of the law and its recent expansion suggest the directive was passed by preying on people’s fear after the London attacks.

The British government has stated the new directive will allow it to, “mine the data to try and recognize patterns in relationships and contacts that will help them find terrorists and criminals.”

The Home Office stated that, “communications data is the where and when of the communication and plays a vital part in a wide range of criminal investigations and prevention of terrorist attacks, as well as contributing to public safety more generally.”

Not surprisingly, the directive has met a great deal of resistance from concerned citizens and groups who fear the new law could lead to dangerous misuse of people’s personal information.

Security breaches are an obvious concern, since the information being retained by Internet service providers is personal and potentially confidential data, which means that any security breach or misuse of the data could be hazardous.

There is an obvious concern for a citizen’s right to privacy and how this right may be compromised under the directive.

This concern is deepened by directive provisions allowing authorities access to stored records without a court order, by issuing a notice under section 22 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.

There’s also concern that the directive’s mandate will needlessly cost businesses time and money. The U.K. government had promised to reimburse Internet service providers for the expenses incurred in retaining the data, thus shifting the cost to taxpayers.

Its future is unclear. Sweden has refused to implement it. and it faces a court challenge in Germany.

The directive is an example of the ongoing struggle between individuals’ right to privacy and the state’s need to protect its citizens’ safety.

Privacy laws generally require businesses to keep as little personal information as possible, for as short a time as possible. But such laws also require certain information be retained.

It’s as if governments don’t trust businesses to deal properly with personal information for business purposes, but do when the state feels it needs the information.

Though citizens may be required to accept a slight invasion of their privacy on certain occasions for security reasons, there is no evidence that this type of retention has led to positive results.