Privacy

In today’s digital age, many apps and websites available to consumers leverage artificial intelligence (AI). These tools, often unbeknownst to consumers, collect, process, and analyze personal data. This data availability supports the expansion of AI-powered technologies and significantly impacts how businesses operate, how they employ data, and how consumers share it. So, how does AI-powered technology work? AI is integrated into our daily lives, and its effectiveness relies on consuming vast amounts of data, including personal data, to develop and train the models supporting this technology. Unlike traditional software programming, which requires a programmer to write specific instructions for computer […]

March 2020 will go down in history as a pivotal time for humanity. Healthcare, economics, politics, law enforcement and so much more will be looked through the lens of COVID-19. Privacy has been discussed extensively in the last few weeks. Privacy and Data Protection authorities around the globe have made statements about the management of personal data during this pandemic (see the statement form the European Data Protection Board here and the Canada Office of the Privacy Commissioner here) . Effective decision-making depends on data and we, as individuals, are the greatest creators of this data. We create such critical […]

As of today November 1st, privacy breach notification will be mandatory at the Federal level in Canada through amendments done to PIPEDA. From now on, the Year of the Breach This year has been called “the year of the breach”, but so was 2017 and before that, 2016. This could be called the global warming of the privacy world. And with regulators becoming more strict about companies’ transparency practices, data privacy breach notifications will also become more prevalent. What does this all mean to organizations and most importantly, to individuals that share their personal data with organizations? Breach notification impacts First of all, […]

A few days back I read an article on the New York Times that talked about “data breach fatigue”. Let’s make this very clear: data breaches are a daily occurrence in our lives. It seems like they’re here to stay and they are like a “not so pleasant” distant relative that decides to visit and suddenly doesn’t leave. Initially we dread the presence but after a while, we get used to them and stop asking when they are packing up to go back home. And that makes me wonder, why? Why do we allow the inconvenience and the risk to […]

A couple of months ago I made a wild statement about the Facebook-Cambridge Analytical incident being the catalyst for stronger privacy regulation around the use of personal data for business purposes.  A few people found some merit on this idea – usually the ones from my own generation whose sense of adventure is a bit tempered by the reality of the past. And then lately, a few new events (think California’s CCPA) are showing that people and governments around the globe are more interested in the protection of personal data.  Most importantly, the appropriate use of personal data in a […]

GDPR came into effect on May 25th. Granted, the world didn’t come to an end but there is certainly awareness around the EU people whose personal data GDPR protects and they are making their voices heard. According to a report released by the IAPP, complaints have started pouring in across the different EU member states with as little as 2 in Sweden and 3 in Belgium and as many as 426 in France. Ireland to date has also had 547 data breach notifications! It is obvious that the Data Protection Authorities in the different EU states have a limited number […]