Never gets old. Go Habs Go.
Oh, hai. [/checks date on last post]. Ooh, boy. Been a while! Maybe I only blog in months starting with the letter J? Yeah, let’s go with that. ANYWAY, a huge case came out [/checks date] about a month ago. Ooh, boy. I really should be better at this blogging thing. Maybe blame COVID? Yeah, let’s go with that. Or maybe I should just stop checking dates. On to the month-old case!
Hi!
Happy Data Privacy Day. Keep your data private! If you are here to get my presentation slides from my talk at McGill today, you can download them here.
Allen
Look, if I have to be honest, my year was fine. I don’t know if you heard how important the internet was this year, but it was. And that tends to work in favour of people in the internet business, like me! Besides a lot of inconvenience like everyone else, my close family and I were not really affected by COVID. So I can’t complain.
I hope all four of my readers (Steve, Massimo, Commissioner Miner and Mom) are safe and healthy, and are having a wonderful holiday season. I know every year I say “this internet thing could really take off next year” but given I was right last year (finally!) I’ll just say “to a much better 2021”. I’ll take having a worse year business-wise if it means we can all get back to more normal times.
See you in 2021.
So (/checks calendar) 4 weeks ago now, on November 17, the Federal Government (well the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) introduced Bill C-11, aka An Act to enact the Consumer Privacy Protection Act and the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, aka the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020. Yes it is all of those things. The biggest upgrade of Canadian privacy law ever! ANWAY, as I no longer have the excuse that I am busy teaching I better finally write about it. Oh crap, I just realized today at 3 P.M. my students’ final essays are due and I will have to start grading. Better get to this post!
The “Inception” of spam emails. Click to embiggen it’s a fun read.
Happy Canada Day, eh? Not only is it Canada Day, it is the 6th anniversary of the coming into force of Canada’s Anti-Spam Law (CASL), the law that ended spam forever. Well except for the spam I screen-shotted above from yesterday that is freaking me out man, in the way it is turning a mirror on me and my little website’s 7-year-old posts and internet privacy. So what do you get a law that has everything? How about a decision from the Federal Court of Appeal that says you pass constitutional muster? Done and done, and it even came 3 weeks early. OK it’s not Friday afternoon anymore, so let’s read this fucking 250-paragraph thing already.
Look, if the alleged “President” of the United States wants to distract from COVID-19 by changing the subject who am I to argue? Gives me something more fun to write about. And to make many comments about the stupidity of the alleged leader of the free world and how he has no understanding about internet law. Right up my alley!
Please enjoy some crap I said on the radio earlier this month about COVID-19 and Zoom and privacy online and so forth. Audio courtesy (well I didn’t really ask, it’s just embeddable) of the Scott Radley Show.
Oh hiya! Before the days turn into weeks turn into months turn into years (too late?) I figured I should write something on this here bloggy thing about this topic that everyone is talking about. Now, as a caveat, I want to say we are dealing with a horrible and tragic situation where thousands of people are sick and dying, and I do not make light of that. Our essential workers are performing amazing work under horrible conditions while I sit typing safely in my home. I feel for everyone suffering, and support all those doing important things to keep society together, unlike me.
But will I continue to write the way I always write with sarcasm and bad jokes and swearing? I think you know the answer. Let’s talk privacy during a global pandemic. Just keep 6 feet away from me FFS.
If a tree falls in the forest can anyone hear it? Can you lose in court if you are not there and no one knows who you are? The answer to the second question at least is now a definitive yes, thanks to a court decision from a few weeks ago (ok ok almost a month ago, I’ve been busy) in Ontario. Let’s dive in anonymously. Who said that?
And belated Happy Holidays I guess? I was so busy writing actual posts over the holidays I forgot to post my annual holiday card. Though the theme this year is about the new year so it kind of makes sense to post it in the new year, right? Let’s go with that.
I just don’t like to end a year (or start one I guess) without thanking my readers (Steve and mom) and predicting, like I do every year, that I am sure this internet thingy will take off in 2020.
To 2020! To the internet!
Me I guess?
mmm, dusty
Oh, hai! Two very important things happened in Canada’s Federal Court over the last two weeks. Sure everyone is talking about only one of them, but I am a completist so I will talk about both of them. But one more than the other. Because the people demand it.
I am a lawyer specializing in internet law working out of Montreal, though sometimes I do it in front of the U.S. Capitol. That should tell you what you need to know about internet law in Canada. I also warp young legal minds at the Faculty of Law at McGill.
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