Jennifer Stoddart - the Canadian Privacy Commissioner - wants to be able  “to begin imposing fines – significant, attention-getting fines – on companies when poor privacy and security practices lead to breaches.” 

Here is the news release she issued yesterday.

This would be a significant departure from the current role of the privacy commissioner.  Would the spectre of fines for privacy breaches actually change behaviour enough to reduce breaches?  Is is a good idea to have the same entity investigate, prosecute, and decide on penalties?  (That’s not without precedent – such penalties are sometimes refered to as administrative monetary penalties - but they are essentially still fines.)

Currently the Privacy Commissioner does not have order making powers.  It issues findings and recommendations.  If those recommendations are ignored, the Commissioner can take the matter to the Federal court for enforcement.

For a more in depth discussion of this, take a look at David Fraser’s thoughts.

Another issue to think about is how privacy relates to photos of people on the streets.  In most countries, privacy commissioners take the position that Google Street view images must blur faces because a photo of a person at a particular place and time is personal information.

Contrast that with the fact that the BBC has released high definition images of the royal wedding procession inviting people to find themselves in the crowd.

Also to the fact that no doubt those images include police officers and other security personnel.  Yet at the same time – particularly in the UK – police often harass and arrest people for doing no more than taking photos that include police or public facilities.

To me those are inconsistent.  If there is a distinction, it is subtle – too subtle to merit different treatment.  For more thoughts on that see this post by Mike Masnick of Techdirt, and this post by a UK blogger.

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

For the record, I don’t support the NDP, and their fiscal policies are plain scary. But that doesn’t mean that their viewpoints on everything ought to be ignored. The NDP tech policies on issues such as net neutrality, usage based billing, and copyright are in many ways more compelling than the Conservative policies. Now that the Conservatives have a majority and don’t have to fight for their existence every day – lets hope they take a step back, take a deep breath, and take a fresh approach to tech issues.

The prosperous future of Canada is to a great extent dependant on the use of technology, the internet and wireless access, and all things digital. That is true for consumers, for business, and for innovators. It is important to have policies that foster that. That point will no doubt be made repeatedly at the Canada 3.0 Conference taking place today and tomorrow.

On the proposed lawful access bill for example. Either drop it all together, or take another serious look at it. Mr. Harper has said that the rights of ordinary citizens should be more valued than the rights of criminals. So recognize that individuals have privacy rights that ought to trump the ability for law enforcement to go on random warrant-less fishing expeditions into our digital lives. If that isn’t a good enough reason, recent data breaches should teach us that the easiest way to prevent a data breach is not to have the data in the first place. Don’t tempt fate by requiring service providers to retain information on customers that is not needed to provide their services. As well, requirements to retain data are in effect an additional tax on the tech sector.

Copyright reform has been a hot topic for years, with many controversial bills being drafted but never passed. One of the issues that concern many of us are provisions that support digital locks. Those provisions do more harm than good, and in essence turn copyright policymaking over to rights holders. There is also the appearance – reinforced by recent wikileaks documents – that too much consideration is being given to the pressures of foreign entertainment lobbies and governments. The NDP policy on copyright merits consideration when drafting the next bill, as it seems to take a more balanced made in Canada consumer friendly approach.