“The Strange Return Of Gyges’ Ring”

March 17, 2013 CLTS

"The Strange Return of Gyges' Ring" in Lessons From The Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)

Book II of Plato’s Republic tells the story of a Lydian shepherd who stumbles upon the ancient Ring of Gyges that has the power to make him invisible. In the story, the shepherd uses the ring to gain secret access to the castle where he kills the king and overthrows the kingdom. Plato uses this story to pose the classic philosophical question: why be moral if one can act with impunity?

My Appearance Before The ETHI

June 18, 2012 CLTS

On June 12th, I was called to appear before the Standing Committee on Ethics, Accountability & Privacy in a hearing on privacy and social media. I told the Committee that ‘big data’ is the ‘new sugar’ and that we stand at the precipice of what one might call the ‘late onset diabetes’ of the information age.

I made a number of recommendations and will submit a detailed brief to the Committee later this summer.

Cross Country Checkup On Lawful Access

February 20, 2012 CLTS

Ian Kerr talks with CBC's Rex Murphy about Bill C-30

Surveillance is, and always has been, a topic that makes people uneasy. The explosion over the past decade of public and private activity online has meant that many people have had to re-think their attitude towards privacy, and define exactly what should be public and what should be private.

What do you think? Is the internet a wide open place that should be free from authority and surveillance? Or must there be an update of police powers to keep up with the evolution of crime and criminals in an Internet age? What about the proposed law …do Canadians need to give the police powers that are better tuned to the electronic realities of today? Or, should Canadians be more vigilant than ever about protecting their privacy in a time when it can be compromised with the click of a mouse?

Our question today: “Does the proposed law to allow police easier identification of Internet users go too far?”

Listen to the show on CBC Cross Country Checkup.

Privacy, Identity And Anonymity

September 1, 2011 CLTS

'Privacy, Identity and Anonymity' in International Handbook of Surveillance Studies, eds. Kristie Ball, Kevin Haggerty and David Lyon (London: Routledge) forthcoming 2011 [co-authored in equal proportion with Jennifer Barrigar].

'This chapter was written in collaboration with one of my favourite readers and writers, Jennifer Barrigar. Together, we consider the complex interrelationship between privacy, identity and anonymity in an increasingly networked society through an exploration of the evolution of network technologies and its consequent shifts in social and technological architectures. The rise of ubiquitous computing from CCTV cameras and handheld devices to digital rights management systems (DRM) and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags has precipitated a shift in the network architecture from one in which anonymity was the default to one in which nearly every online transaction is subject to monitoring and the possibility of identity authentication. We argue that this invariably affects the relationship between privacy, identity and anonymity

The Devil Is In The Defaults

May 29, 2010 CLTS

If Facebook were truly committed to protecting privacy, it would start with the assumption that people want less access to their information, not more

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg celebrated his 26th birthday. Well, sort of. While he did indeed turn 26, it is reported that he was forced to cancel his Caribbean celebration to lead a series of emergency meetings on one of his least favourite topics: privacy.

These meetings resulted in significant alterations to the website's platform and user interface and a major media event that took place on Wednesday. Although numerous trusted media outlets, privacy advocates and politicians around the globe reported this event as "a privacy U-turn" (The Sun in Britain), an "about face" change (Economist), "a major step forward for privacy" (American Civil Liberties Association) and a "significant first step that Facebook deserves credit for," (Senator Charles Schumer), I am not so sure.

New Privacy World

April 18, 2009 CLTS

Ever since I moved to ottawa, I have been a huge fan of CBC Radio. So I was thrilled yesterday to be invited for the 3rd time to appear on to talk about our new book, Lessons from the Identity Trail. Below is the text of Nancy Wilson’s introduction followed by a link to the podcast of our interview…