Marni Soupcoff: Want to put a snooping government back in its place? Click here | National Post
Enter a new app — released by the Digital Stewardship Initiative the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and Openmedia.ca — which helps people create compelling and legally solid requests to ISPs for the personal information the company has about them. Yes, it’s sad that we need such an app. But clearly we do, so kudos to the team that put together Access My Info, and may I suggest that anyone who cares about their privacy use it to familiarize themselves with what data is being held by the telecoms they’re patronizing and when that data is being shared. (You’ll find the tool at Openmedia.ca/myinfo.)
The Supreme Court has helped Canadians significantly by clarifying that it’s generally an unlawful seizure for authorities to gather personal identifying information about an Internet user from an ISP without first seeking a warrant. But over time, the significant government overreaching into private details that we’ve learned about this year will creep back into place if Canadians themselves are not vigilant about guarding their own privacy and rights. That means getting informed about what the telecoms know about you and what they’re willing to share; and then making a plan to express yourself accordingly, either with your business or your voice, or both.
Enter a new app — released by the Digital Stewardship Initiative the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and Openmedia.ca — which helps people create compelling and legally solid requests to ISPs for the personal information the company has about them. Yes, it’s sad that we need such an app. But clearly we do, so kudos to the team that put together Access My Info, and may I suggest that anyone who cares about their privacy use it to familiarize themselves with what data is being held by the telecoms they’re patronizing and when that data is being shared. (You’ll find the tool at Openmedia.ca/myinfo.)
The Supreme Court has helped Canadians significantly by clarifying that it’s generally an unlawful seizure for authorities to gather personal identifying information about an Internet user from an ISP without first seeking a warrant. But over time, the significant government overreaching into private details that we’ve learned about this year will creep back into place if Canadians themselves are not vigilant about guarding their own privacy and rights. That means getting informed about what the telecoms know about you and what they’re willing to share; and then making a plan to express yourself accordingly, either with your business or your voice, or both.