Topic Privacy

Happy (?) Data Privacy Day / Week / Month / Millenium

 

Oh hai! Still a couple of hours left to celebrate #DataPrivacyDay, #DataPrivacyCentury, or whatever. Meh, privacy. Who needs it.

I keed. YOU need privacy of course! Keep the man off your data. To celebrate, go ahead and watch me in the video above, giving a talk about, I dunno, privacy or something. It’s been a whirlwind #DataPrivacyWeek for me, being an expert and so forth I am in demand! Above was the talk I gave at McGill. Besides the terrible “uh’s” and “um’s”, it’s not too bad! And a good summary of what’s coming in Quebec’s new privacy law, and how it helps you. Enjoy! Slides here to download if you really can’t get enough of me. Now go be private.

OK OK, here’s your post about Bill C-11: what’s *not* in the Bill

mmm deliscious privacySo (/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!

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It’s your obligatory COVID-19 privacy post!

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.

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Let’s talk about… elections? Sure why not.

[/checks date of last post] Oh hello. You probably thought I was dead. I am not! I was celebrating my annual “dark” period where I get writer’s block and / or lazy. But I was recently called out on Twitter for my silence, and I realized my many two fans needed to hear from me. Not only do you get words of wisdom written down, you get words spoken out loud, with me talking out of my ass (my favourite way to speak) in that clip up there. Lemme explain.

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Regulators are sick and tired of Facebook’s crap

Irony can be pretty ironic
Irony can be pretty ironic

Mmm, that’s good irony

I first used that image up there on this little legal blog back in 2011. It’s incredible how still useful it is. My Facebook tag of posts is pretty much the biggest font in that tag cloud somewhere over there on the right. But the last week has really been bad for Facebook. Even Canada is pissed! Oh wait, Facebook’s stock jumped 4% after a very good earnings quarter. Maybe not such a bad week after all.

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