Google Announces New Privacy Policy

Last week, Google announced its new privacy policy, which will take effect on March 1. Google is doing away with the over 60 different existing privacy policies for its various products and replace them with one single shorter and simpler privacy policy.

Those who are most affected by this change are people with Google accounts. Under the new privacy policy, if a user is signed in to the Google account, Google will be able to collect and combine user information from across its various products and services. For example, Google will be able to collect and analyze your search terms on the Google search engine and suggest related videos when you next go onto YouTube. This will enable Google to form fuller and more comprehensive user profiles. As Google emphasized in its announcement, this change will allow it “to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.”

Facebook is already able to combine its user data. Facebook tracks everything its users do while on their accounts and that user data is used to target advertisings for particular services and products to particular users. Given the volume of registered users and the often more personal nature of the information its users provide on the social networking site, Facebook has grown to be a formidable competitor to Google in the online advertising market.

This change to Google’s privacy policy is clearly an response to Facebook. The range of services and products Google provides is wider than that of Facebook. Though user data Facebook tend to be more personal, Google has attempted to rectify this with the launch of its own social networking site Google+ last year.  Now Google’s new ability to combine user data collected from different services will enable it to better integrate its user data and use it to better target its advertising.

Google’s new change to its privacy policy has raised concerns from some users as well as a number of members of the US Congress. Users cannot opt out of the new privacy policy to prevent their user information from being combined across Google services. Google’s answer is rather unsatisfactory, i.e. don’t log in. information about users activities on Google services while not logged into their Google accounts would not be combined. However, without logging in, many of Google’s services would be inaccessible to users.

There have been growing privacy concerns about the user data Google and Facebook collect, which have attracted the attention of both US lawmakers and Federal Trade Commission. Google and Facebook both have had to settle with the FTC over investigations of privacy complaints in the past. Google’s privacy policy change is likely to attract further regulatory scrutiny.

Ontario Court of Appeal Recognizes Tort of “Invasion of Seclusion”

In its recent ruling in Jones v Tsige, the Ontario Court of Appeal formally confirmed the existence of an actionable cause for invasion of seclusion. While the tort of appropriation of personality has long been recognized in Ontario, this appellate decision is the first in the province to give an unequivocal right of action based on breach of privacy. The court surveyed the relevant common law and statutory landscape in Ontario, other provinces, US, and Commonwealth, as well as Charter jurisprudence with respect to the protection of privacy rights. It concluded that “[r]ecognition of such a cause of action would amount to an incremental step that is consistent with the role of this court to develop the common law in a manner consistent with the changing needs of society”.

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The Phone Book in Your Pocket

In an age where the phone book has nigh become obsolete, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has used it to analogize the federal government’s proposed lawful access legislation. His analogy was a response to serious privacy concerns over the proposed legislation, raised by the likes of Privacy Commissioners at both the federal and provincial levels. Lisa Austin, associate law professor at the University of Toronto, has responded in kind with an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail. She looks at how this legislation will expand the government’s ability to get access to private internet data without judicial oversight. Are the privacy issues with our telephone usage really the same as the privacy issues with our internet use? Read Prof Austin’s article here.

Carrier IQ faces lawsuits over controversial tracking software

Last week, a furor was caused by software developer Carrier IQ, who develop software used to track mobile phone usage in diagnostic and network monitoring purposes. A researcher, Trevor Eckhart, reverse-engineered his HTC Evo Android phone and found that Carrier IQ’s software tracked his keystrokes, search queries and text messages with no ability to turn it off. He posted his results in a YouTube video showing ostensibly how his information was recorded and transmitted to carriers in the background on his phone. The video attracted massive attention, gathering 1.5 million hits in a week, and evoked a cease-and-desist letter from Carrier IQ’s legal team which they subsequently withdrew and apologized for after the Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in.

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Crowdsourcing Justice in the London Riots

Following Vancouver’s example in June, social media has once again been enlisted to help identify the rioters and looters of London’s riots last week. Scotland Yard has posted stills from surveillance cameras on their Flickr account, asking for help in identifying suspects. And independent “name-and-shame” sites have also cropped up, including one Tumblr site called “Catch a Looter”. A twist in London’s case, however, is the potential use of face recognition technology, a tool the Vancouver Police Department declined to use in their investigations.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Legality of Online Anonymity: Two Cases

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice recently released two decisions, one last month and one last week, on the issue of online anonymity, tackling that delicate balance between competing privacy interests, the public interest of promoting justice by facilitating the prosecution of defamation and the underlying values of freedom of expression. Read the rest of this entry »

Dropbox Accounts Accidentally Open to All for 4 Hours

A code update Monday afternoon introduced a bug which made Dropbox accounts password-free, meaning anyone could have logged into anyone else’s account with only the email address, for about four hours. The breach occurred between 1:54pm and 5:41pm Pacific time and was fixed at 5:46pm. According to Dropbox’s blog post, however, only less than one percent of users logged in during that period. Read the rest of this entry »

LawTech Camp a success

On Saturday, June 18, 2011 the University of Toronto Faculty of law was host to an innovatively structured gathering featuring a series of sessions and discussions on issues relating to law and technology. Based on the idea of BarCamp–user generated gatherings, or “unconferences”–the sessions arose from the suggestions and proposed discussion topics put forward by the participants and attendees at the sessions.

Sponsored by CILP, lawyerlocate.ca, SapnaLaw, Mitchell E. Kowalski and My Legal Briefcase, lawTechcamp featured sessions that dealt with a range of issues, from questions around social media in the courts, privacy issues in the context of corporations and PIPEDA, free access to law through organizations such as CanLII, and the strengths and challenges that arise from cloud computing structures, the topics were diverse and the resulting discussions were at times lively. Read the rest of this entry »

Super-injunctions: Twitter Sued by Footballer (UK)

In what may be the first lawsuit against the microblogging site, an English footballer is suing Twitter and its users after a/some Tweeter(s) purported to reveal the name of a player who allegedly had an affair with a model. The lawsuit lists the defendants as “Twitter Inc and persons unknown” according to reports. It seems like we finally have an answer to how Twitter gags could potentially be enforced. Sort of. Read the rest of this entry »

Gag-Order Issued for Facebook and Twitter

In an attempt to prevent the spreading of sensitive information, a judge in Britain has banned Twitter and Facebook users, among others, from revealing details about a brain-damaged woman involved in a recent UK case. The order was issued in the Court of Protection regarding the case of a mother looking to withdraw life support from her brain damaged daughter. The ban seeks to prevent users from identifying the brain-damaged woman and her caregivers. Read the rest of this entry »