20th June 2008, Vancouver, Canada

The International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy
is pleased to announce the symposium, “National and International Perspectives on
Identity Theft and Fraud”, to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The symposium features experts at a one day event focusing on:

- identifying and measuring the problem of identity theft and fraud;
- national and international perspectives on criminalization;
- strategies for enforcement and prevention of identity theft and fraud; and
- the challenges in international cooperation in the fight against identity theft and fraud.

Registration is $99 or $50 for students

For more information, go to
http://www.icclr.law.ubc.ca/Site%20Map/Events/2008/Fraud.htm

International Centre for
Criminal Law Reform and
Criminal Justice Policy
1822 East Mall, Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z1
Tel: +1-604-822-9875 Fax: +1-604-822-9317
http://www.icclr.law.ubc.ca

The Coordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS) has been axed by the Federal Government “because “extensive” consultations showed it wasn’t valued by government departments.”

CAIRS was was created in 1989 to track Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and co-ordinate responses amongst goverment ministries. It has been used by the media and researchers to locate obscure documents and fine tune subsequent FOI requests. In 2003, the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Information and Security Policy Division (ISPD) renewed it’s interest in CAIRS: “Of continued interest to the ISPD is the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS). The system was created in 1989 and was modernized in 2000 to meet Y2K requirements. Its basic functionality remained relatively unchanged, despite earlier considerations to open the site to the public. The Board is working towards removing the remaining impediments to on-line access, which include removing personal identifiers and respecting official languages requirements.”

Among Justice John Gomery’s recommendations in his report “Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities” was for greater governmental transparency and accountability. I’d call this move by the Federal Government pretty transparent, wouldn’t you?

See: Tories kill access to information database

Government of Canada’s Access to Information Review Task Force

Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada

Michael Geist has set up a website where you can opt out of getting unsolicited calls from registered charities, business with prior relationships, political parties, survey companies, and newspapers.  He explains why he created this site:

The Canadian government passed legislation in 2005 mandating the creation of a do-not-call registry.  The registry is scheduled to take effect in mid-2008, yet many Canadians may be disappointed to learn about the exemption of a wide range of organizations (registered charities, business with prior relationships, political parties, survey companies, and newspapers).  Under the law, exempted organizations are permitted to make unsolicited telephone calls despite the inclusion of the number in the do-not-call registry. However, organizations must remove numbers from their lists if specifically requested to do so.

IOptOut takes advantage of this approach by allowing Canadians to create and manage a personal do-not-call list that begins where do-not-call legislation ends. Once you register, you’ll be able to view a categorized list where you can opt-out of further contact from exempt organizations.  To do this we send an email notification to each organization on your behalf requesting that your name, email address and phone number(s) be removed from their active marketing lists.

It took about 3 minutes to register (I really liked the “Please delete my information within 24 hours after completion of the opt-out process.” option) and scan through the various categories of organizations and select the ones that I didn’t want contacting me when I’m eating dinner.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada recently published a consultation paper on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) in the Workplace: Recommendations for Good Practices.

While the title sounds like the paper could be a bit dry, boring and difficult to understand, it actually is really interesting, written in accessible language with specific examples.

In the section on function creep and secondary uses, the following example is included:

For instance, users of toll payment system that require the use of RFID transponders in vehicles have had their records subpoenaed in divorce cases for the purpose of providing claims of marital infidelity.  The records may assist in determining where an individual’s car was at a particular time.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada (consultation@privcom.gc.ca) is inviting comments on this paper until April 30, 2008.

BC will be piloting a new, RFID chip enhanced driver’s licence that could be used in place of a passport to cross the Canada-US boarder (CBC, Globe and Mail). The RFID chip would have citizenship information, a photo and status to legally cross the boarder. The biggest privacy concern appears to be US boarder guards being able to access information from the RFID chip (like driving history) and that information being stored by the US government on their servers.

John van Dongen, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister dismissed these concerns by stating:

They do not access medical records. They do not access driver’s records. They do not access fines, tickets, penalties. They do not access accident history. None of that information is of any interest to the border agencies in either country.

I have had some nightmare boarder crossings into the US. I’ve been asked about personal information that is not related to my citizenship or eligibility to enter the US.  My partner was interrogated because the boarder guard made a data entry error and pulled up the wrong file. I do not trust the US government, or its employees. This has become worse since 9/11.

I also have concerns about the RFID technology being used.  While I heard on the radio that a metal sleeve would be issued along with the enhanced driver’s licence so that people with RFID readers could not access information encoded on the card, I would like to know more about about how the BC government is helping me protect my personal information.  Some librarians and privacy advocates have had concerns about RFID implementation in libraries.  I think the stakes are much higher than being able to track who checked out certain items of interest.