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Life During Wartime: Is our Legal System Protecting the Human Face of Privacy?

Stephanie Perrin, President, Digital Discretion Inc. and Senior Fellow, Electronic Privacy Information Centre introduced and moderated this panel, which discussed privacy and the legal system during wartime. The panel comprised Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor; Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada; John Borking, Director, Borking Consultancy and Associate Board member of the Dutch Data Protection Authority; Andrew Clement, Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto; and Mark Rotenberg, Executive Director, EPIC
and Adjunct Professor of Law, Georgetown University.

Peter Hustinx spoke about a number of European developments, many very positive, in the context of privacy as a human right.

Jennifer Stoddart talked about the situation in Canada and indicated that it was not as positive as the European situation. She described Canadians as 'naked citizens' in front of a fully clothed emperor who keeps adding more and more layers of clothes through the seasons. The Commissioner is participating with the government on a number of projects in the post 9/11 environment. For example, the Commissioner has been waiting for a privacy impact assessment on no fly lists (or watch lists) for six months, which is not forthcoming despite the development of the list. The Commissioner has also been consulted on a biometric passport which apparently is being rolled out for diplomats. She expressed concern about disturbing trends and projects in Canada, including lawful access, DNA databanks and the weakening of the Personal Information and Protection of Privacy Act in order to conscript the private sector for law enforcement purposes. In her view, Canadians are faced with a diminished expectation of privacy.
 
John Borking discussed a number of his thoughts about privacy developments in 'wartime', particularly with regard to his paper on privacy enhancing technologies recently submitted to the University of Ottawa Law and Technology Journal's special conference edition. He talked about his work on the PRIME project in Europe. He focussed on privacy issues related to airport security and said that soon there will be biometric identifiers on passports and the use of RFIDs in airports. He talked about potential solution to some of these privacy problems, which have been suggested by the PRIME project.
Andrew Clement talked about biometric passports proposed in Canada and generally. He suggested that they will not stop people with ill-intent. According to Clement, biometric passports will not be effective because people without a record of bad behaviour can pass through even the tightest security. In his view, no evidence has been presented to indicate that biometric passports will be an effective security measure.

Marc Rotenberg noted that the systems that were in place to maintain balance and accountability are under attack, there is increased secrecy in government activities that implicate privacy (particularly in the area of passenger profiling).
 

Download Presentations:
John Borking, The Case of Airport Security Anonymous Traveling