Far too often we tend to think – like the saying that an expert is anyone from out of town – that the best musicians and artists are from out of town.  To disprove that, I encourage you to go to a concert by Orchestra London, and/or the Amabile choirs. 

The cost is quite reasonable, you are supporing local talent, and if you have not heard them before, you might be pleasantly surprised by how good they are.  The various Amabile choirs have, for example, performed around the world. 

All of the Amabile choirs are performing this Sunday at Centennial Hall in a concert called “African Stories“.  

On March 4th the Amabile Primus choir (mens choir) performs with the Nylons at the London City Music Theatre.

Orchestra London has concerts ranging from classical to pops to pop.  Here is their March calendar.    On March 11th and 12th, they perform, along with the Jeans ‘n Classics band, music by The Police and Sting.  

On March 26, Violinist Annette-Barbara Vogel of the UWO Don Wright Faculty of Music, described as “one of the finest violinists of her generation”, performs the Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with Orchestra London.  I must admit to not being as educated on classical music as I should be, but I’m told that this would be a performance worth hearing even if you don’t consider yourself a classical music fan.

For transparency - I’m on the Orchestra London Board of directors, and my son sings with the Amable choirs.

That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  While the webinar was based on lawyer and client information, the principles apply to almost anyone.  It reads as follows:

I attended a webinar today by the CBA entitled Safeguarding your Client’s Confidential Information – Tips and Traps. Presented by David Fraser and Dominic Jaar.

Here are some of the highlights.

Quote from security expert Bruce Schneier:

“Hardware is easy to protect: lock it in a room, chain it to a desk, or buy a spare. Information poses more of a problem. It can exist in more than one place; be transported halfway across the planet in seconds; and be stolen without your knowledge.”

This is primarily a people issue – requires training and understanding. It’s not just about technology.

Ethical rules. Not just rules against gossip and intentionally disclosing client information.

Includes an obligation to safeguard all of the information about a client against misuse and disclosure.

Privacy laws also apply.

For example, PIPEDA requires safeguards against:

Loss or theft,

Unauthorized access,

Disclosure,

Copying,

Use, or

Modification.

Cradle to grave protection is required – disposal of paper and any computer memory (no matter where it is – computer, fax machine, jump-drive, smartphone, etc.) must be done by shredder or other method of destruction.

When using social media be cautious about whether to separate personal from professional.

When crossing borders – customs have broad ability to look at your laptop. Best solution is to not cross the border with client materials on laptop. Some lawyers use clean loaner laptop when travelling, and access client info remotely.

The biggest threat to security – is you, the user.

Encourages encryption of all client data on portable devices such as laptops, jumpdrives and smartphones.

Think it can’t happen to you? 86,000 lost or stolen laptops per year.

Make sure you change the default settings for admin usernames and passwords on hardware. Don’t forget Bluetooth.

Check password strength here: https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx?WT.mc_id=Site_Link

Consider this tool: http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

If use cloud – make sure both communication channel and storage is encrypted.

Wipe metadata from word documents you create. Is easy to do in current Word versions. Converting to pdf is not enough.

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

Several of us here at Slaw comment from time to time on tablets, and the paperless office - but usually not together.

All Things Digital has a post entitled Use a Tablet, Save a Tree that talks about a Morgan Stanley prediction that the increasing demand for digital content will result in a 2% decline in printer supplies revenue in 2011. It suggests that this trend is one reason that Hewlett Packard is getting into the tablet market.

For the record, I’m impatiently waiting for the iPad2, then will take the tablet plunge. While one doesn’t need a tablet to go paperless, it is a useful tool to help in that quest. My thought all along has been to see what the competition is like when the iPad 2 comes out, and make a decision on which tablet to buy. But right now, it seems that while there will be some interesting choices, many won’t be available for a while. And while some of the competing products seem to have far better technical specs than the iPad, its the iPad2 that we must compare those to. I have resisted the Apple reality distortion field up until now, but am starting to think that at least on the tablet front, and at least for the near future, resistance is futile.

For the London Free Press – February 14, 2011

Read this on Canoe

PIPEDA: Law requires a high degree of accuracy when collecting personal information

The recent Federal Court of Canada decision in Nammo v. Transunion marks the first time damages have been awarded under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.

Mr. Nammo, the self-represented applicant, was awarded $5,000 in damages after the credit bureau disclosed inaccurate personal information to a bank in connection with his loan application, which was declined as a result. This decision is a departure from previous cases, which have refused to award PIPEDA damages.

For example, Randall v. Nubodys Fitness Centres was based on the facts that there was no injury to the applicant sufficient to justify an award of damages, the respondent did not benefit commercially from the breach, the respondent did not act in bad faith and there was no link between the disclosure and the employer’s alleged retaliation against the applicant.

The court determined the violation of the applicant’s rights under PIPEDA was “the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding,” and an award of damages should only be made “in the most egregious situations.”

The court in Nammo stated the violation of Mr. Nammo’s rights was not “the result of an unfortunate misunderstanding.” The court noted that PIPEDA requires personal information to be as accurate, complete and up-to-date “as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used.”

In this case, the breach involved financial information of high personal and professional importance, and therefore required a high standard of accuracy and completeness.

The court held the credit bureau’s conduct rose to the level of an egregious situation. The decision was based on the facts that the disclosure of inaccurate information was directly linked to the refusal of the loan and injury to Mr. Nammo, that the credit bureau profited from the disclosure, that the credit bureau failed to rectify the problem in a timely manner and that the credit bureau acted in bad faith in failing to take responsibility.

The court awarded $5,000 in damages for the humiliation he suffered as a result of having his loan application denied and the further humiliation and inconvenience from the delay before the error was properly corrected. It will be interesting to see whether this case opens a floodgate of litigants seeking damages under PIPEDA.

The HP WebOS tablet announcement yesterday adds another tablet option.  It won’t be available until this summer, though.  And the iPad 2 announcement is eminent.  Confused about the best option?  Seems that there are as many opinions as there are people writing about it.  Here are a few things to look at.

HP’s announcement.

Engadget hardware comparison.

Robert Scoble’s thoughts. 

That’s my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows.

Governments, courts, school boards, and people in general too often focus on the wrong aspects of new things.  Whenever a new tool arrives – such as various forms of social media or smart phones – two seemingly opposite things happen.

First, as we experiment with new tools, people inevitably do stupid things with them.  Such as making comments or posting something on social media that the person would never have posted on a physical bulletin board, or written in an open letter to a group of friends.

Second, because humans have flawed risk perceptions, we are more comfortable with the familiar than the new, and thus exaggerate the risks of new things. 

Combine these two, and we see over-reactions that try to ban, control, or stop new tools, or seek over-reaching remedies.

Examples include banning smart-phones in schools, courts demanding that a juror hand over Facebook account info after a comment was posted rather than dealing with the actual comment (apparently just a post that the trial was boring), and governments like Egypt that try to control its population by cutting off various forms of communication.

Thinking about the uses, risks and ramifications of new tools, and how they change the status quo is a good thing.  But it is important to put all that in the right context.  And to consider ways to take advantage of them, rather than simply dismissing them.  If one is a late adopter, that’s fine – but late adopters shouldn’t be the ones making all the rules.

So with that in mind ponder these stats.  Smartphones are outselling PC’s.  If iPads are counted as PC’s, they now have 7% of the global PC market.  Facebook has more than 500 million active users,  and 50% log on to Facebook in any given day.   Twitter has almost 200 million users, posting almost 100 million times a day.

I normally post my Free Press articles on Monday- but because of the Free Press re-org of Biz Monday, all the columns are now bi-weekly.  So today I’m going to promote some upcoming London events.

My son is in a quartet called The Starting Pitchers that is offering singing valentines on the 13th and 14th.  See their Kijiji ad here for details.

The Amabile choirs have several upcoming events. Details are on their web site.  (My son is in Amabile as well.)  

Events include the annual Amabile Festival at Centennial Hall on February 27th entitled African Stories, featuring all of the Amabile choirs - and the Men’s Midwinter Gala fundraiser on February 12th.   Also check out their Art From the Heart fundraising art show and sale on now at the Masonville Public Library. 

Orchestra London has two concerts this weekend.  (I’m now on the Orchestra London board.)  The Red Hot Weekends series has concerts at Centennial Hall Friday and Saturday night.   And on Sunday the Serenade Brunch series is at the Lamplighter.

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

There has been a firestorm of protest recently over the issue of usage based billing for internet access. 

It is widely recognized that the future of Canada is digital.  This concept has broad government and community support.  This future depends on cost-effective, easy access to the internet. 

Anything that inhibits internet access and use (either wired or wireless), such as the usage based billing we are now seeing, is counterproductive, and a step back to the stone age.  We can’t afford to have have an environment where existing or prospective businesses or consumers have any hesitation to use the tools that are available now, or to innovate and experiment for the future.