On the Identity Trail's Jason Millar will be presenting a paper at the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which runs from June 26-28. The paper is titled "Blind Visionaries: A Case For Broadening Engineers' Ethical Duties".

On the Identity Trail's Ian Kerr has been invited to speak at the Visions National Health Law Conference in Banff, Alberta on Friday, November 9.  The two day national health law conference will focus on the future of health care, presenting an exceptionally unique opportunity to bring together predictions from a wide range of perspectives during an unprecedented time of change for the Canadian health care system.

Ian's presentation is titled "The technologies of (trans)humanist medicine."  The increasing ability to modify, augment, and enhance the human body beyond species-typical boundaries is among the most significant recent advances in science and technology. Emerging technologies not only offer new tools for restoring function to injured bodies, they also offer the ability to surpass species-typical function and performance. As enhancement technologies are perfected, they create new possibilities for treating those who are already said to be ‘healthy’, making them ‘better than well’.  As such, a broad adoption of enhancement technologies risks a dangerous shift in the values underlying the healthcare agenda.  In an era where health goals are blurring the lines between therapy and enhancement and medical interventions are becoming more and more technology dependent, Ian examines the drivers of enhancement-based health through an investigation of emerging cybernetic and information technologies and their underlying values. In his presentation, Ian argues that the ‘convergence’ and ‘innovation’ rhetoric recently re-emerging in the health sector presupposes a dangerous philosophy that constitutes a further erosion of humanist ideals in medicine.

Click here for more information on the conference.

The iCommish panel is airing Sunday, November 4 at 1:35 PM and again Monday, November 5 at 3:30 AM.  In response to the so-called ‘privacy divide’, this panel of Information and Privacy Commissioners – David Loukidelis (British Columbia), Frank Work (Alberta), and Ann Cavoukian (Ontario) - shared the results of a group experiment in which they spent a couple of months living a ‘2nd life’ in a social network.  The panel was moderated by Ian Kerr.

The interceptedI panel is airing Monday, November 5 at 2:30 PM.  This panel, moderated by Pippa Lawson, considered the expansion of police powers in an internet age and what it might mean for Canadians.  Panelists were Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa; Ian Goldberg, David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo; Clayton Pecknold, Deputy Chief Constable, Central Saanich Police Service, British Columbia; and Wesley Wark, Department of History and Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

The videocast is available here.

The podcast is available here.

Their CNA Consultation submission can be downloaded here.

Their academic article can be downloaded here.

or Have You Been Facebook Stalked Yet?

a blog*on*nymity ID TRAIL MIX by Kayleigh Platz

To read the rest of this piece, visit: http://www.anonequity.org/weblog/archives/2007/10/intimate_invasions_how_far_wil.php

On the Identity Trail's David Matheson has been awarded the International Award for Excellence in the area of technology, knowledge and society, for his paper titled "Virtue and the Surveillance Society", by the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society. 

David has been invited to present a plenary session at the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society, to be held at Northeastern University, Boston from the 18-20 January 2008. He will be formally acknowledged as the recepient of the International Award for Excellence at the conference.

The paper argues that the surveillance society risks undermining the ability of its citizens to develop virtue for the same sorts of reasons that overprotective parenting can impair the character development of children. Accordingly, to the extent that we think virtue development among citizens is important, we have reason to resist the transformation of the networked society into the surveillance society.

Click here to read the paper.

On September 19th, 2007 from 11:30-1pm in room 147B of Fauteux Hall, the Law & Technology group at the University of Ottawa have dedicated the opening symposium of the Tory’s Technology Law Speaker Series to discuss issues that lie at the interface of national security, current surveillance technology and racial profiling. This multi-disciplinary symposium titled "National Security, Surveillance Technology and Human Rights in Canada” will examine the costs of social and technological changes aimed at ensuring “national security”. These include ethnic and religious profiling as a consequence of the Anti-Terrorism Act and the Passenger Protection Program (Canada’s no-fly list), and the implementation of ubiquitous surveillance technologies that threaten privacy and free expression.  The symposium will be conducted in a moderated open panel format open to questions from the audience.

Click here for further information.

a blog*on*nymity ID TRAIL MIX Dina Mashayekhi

Being recently married, I still haven’t quite adjusted to the idea that you can’t change certain traits in your spouse. For example, my other half tends to view cell phones as a leash, and he regularly “forgets” to call me when he’s going to be late, or going out after class or work. As a result, I end up panicking, thinking he has been in a terrible accident and is unconscious somewhere, and I promptly begin my routine of repeatedly calling his cellphone (which is usually off or at the bottom of his bag on silent mode). By the time he finally gets to the phone and sees 18 missed-calls from me, I’m usually anxiety ridden and he calls me laughing, telling me I’m crazy, and that he’s on his way home. This conversation is usually followed by certain expletives and ends with my threat that I’m going to implant him with a GPS tracking device.

To read the rest of this piece, visit: http://www.anonequity.org/weblog/archives/2007/09/for_better_for_worse_or_until.php