George Tomlinson
Professor, Department of Chemistry, The University of Winnipeg

e-mail: George.Tomlinson(at)ds1.uwinnipeg.ca

ANON: What are your interests in the study of anonymity?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: My interest has arisen on several levels. As an individual citizen, I greatly value my privacy and believe I have a right to it. Like most of us, I suspect, I am not sure exactly what this means except in situations when it becomes clear that my privacy has been violated (the person who broke into my house surely violated my privacy). In the networked world, violations of privacy may be more subtle and frequently undetected. In the past few years, issues of privacy, confidentiality and anonymity have gained prominence in the public eye through the enactment of privacy legislation at both federal and provincial government levels. At the same time, usually in the name of better security, governments are placing increasingly stringent standards of identification upon their citizens and demanding that other governments impose similar standards on theirs. The potential risks associated with these measures in terms of individual rights and freedoms are not widely appreciated. It is clearly in my interest as a citizen to become better educated on these issues. The Anonymity Project will make a major contribution to raising public awareness and knowledge of these matters.

On another level, as an academic I am interested in exploring some of the philosophical aspects of issues related to identity, privacy, and anonymity. It seems to me that an assessment of the values we derive from our concepts of privacy and anonymity might benefit from an analysis of the concept of identity, or rather what components of identity might be important in determining the inherent value of privacy and anonymity to the individual. Here I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Marsha Hanen, with whom I worked closely as an administrator during her years as President of the University of Winnipeg.

Finally, as a scientist, I am interested in understanding better the underlying basis, accuracy, reliability and potential for mis-use of identification techniques collectively referred to as Biometrics. While such techniques include fingerprints, voice prints, face recognition, iris scans and retinal scans, I am particularly interested in the rapidly growing interest on the part of not only governments and law-enforcement agencies but also commercial organizations in the use of so-called DNA fingerprints as an identification technique. While the use of such data has undoubtedly made significant forensic evidential contributions in criminal cases (including resolving some recent spectacular miscarriages of justice) and in the identification of victims of crime or disaster, the same methodology can also be used provide information on an individual’s health (or risks to health) and even on racial and ethnic characteristics. Clearly, this raises a number of ethical issues that need to be addressed.

ANON: Before you joined the Anonymity Project, what sorts of projects had you worked on?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: Prior becoming heavily involved in administration, I was engaged in biochemical research over a 20-year period at the University of Winnipeg. My interests were focused on structure-function relationships among proteins, especially those found in the nervous system, and the interaction of these proteins with small molecules such as neurotransmitters, hormones, and drugs. As an administrator for the past 13 years, I was heavily involved in the planning and implementation of a wide range of academic and administrative initiatives, including the wholesale transformation of the university’s information and communications technology systems.

ANON: How do your past studies contribute to our understanding of the privacy and anonymity?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: I cannot claim to have made any formal contribution to these areas. Nevertheless, both my scientific work and my administrative work have exposed me to a wide range of ethical issues that in most cases involve some aspect of privacy. I see the Anonymity Project as an opportunity to participate in, and contribute to, a unique multi-disciplinary project aimed at bringing clarity to the enormously complex set of social, legal, ethical and scientific issues raised by the spread of technology and the uses to which it is put.

ANON: You are a supporter of forest conservation, an effort that exists in part due to civilization’s quest for progress. What parallels exist between this and anonymity?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: The strongest parallel that I see is that both areas present a number of potential strong risks if certain actions are taken in the absence of clear understanding of the consequences of those actions. Both areas involve complex and wide-ranging issues that require a multi-disciplinary approach in order to better comprehend the nature and possible impact of those risks and actions. There are also benefits inherent in both areas and in these areas as much as any other area it is a question of maximizing the benefit and minimizing the risk. Having the benefit of in-depth studies in advance of many of the actions being taken can best ensure the chances of success.

ANON: You have done work implementing privacy laws to the University of Winnipeg. What are some of the privacy issues universities face?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: Universities are among the more open and accountable of all public institutions and there is actually very little in the operations and activities of universities that is private, quite the reverse in fact. Universities do of course share the privacy and confidentiality concerns of all organization when it comes to personal information related to its students, faculty and staff. Here I think the issue is largely a technological one, that of providing a high level of security of data related to students and employees in an environment in which information technology, and access to it, is playing an increasing role in facilitating teaching, learning, and scholarship.

ANON: Why do you think that interdisciplinary collaboration is especially important to the study of anonymity?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: Any attempt to understand big issues virtually demands an interdisciplinary approach. For example, most large-scale medical research projects these days will likely involve not only physicians but also biochemists, pharmacologists, physicists, mathematicians, ethicists and social scientists. True interdisciplinarity, I believe, involves bringing to bear a diverse set of disciplinary perspectives to a given question or set of questions. The more complex and wide-ranging the issues are, the more important it becomes to examine the questions posed from as many perspectives as possible. The challenge is to bring it all together into some sort of coherent whole, what Dr. Hanen has referred to as integration. I think the Anonymity Project, involving individuals and teams from all of the traditional disciplines (and some non-traditional), presents a wonderful opportunity of becoming a model of true interdisciplinary collaboration.

ANON: Do you think technology can address the issue of anonymity adequately?

GEORGE TOMLINSON: I think that remains to be seen. Technology is surely part of both the problem and its solution. Whatever the outcome, it is clear that technology and its use and mis-use will continue to be a central issue for many years to come.

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