Companies and IT professionals must consider privacy as the touchstone of their information systems or risk violating new privacy laws, says the country’s top privacy watchdog.
“While my enforcement style is to be an ombudsman, my position comes with teeth — and I will bite down hard if and when necessary,” vowed federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski.
In a keynote speech Monday to the Canadian Information Processing Society’s annual conference in Calgary, Radwanski stressed the importance for both government and industry to understand and respect the new privacy requirements.
The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act is now being phased in to give Canadians clear privacy rights in their dealings with the private sector.
Alberta’s own legislation is expected to come on line within two years. By 2004, the federal law will apply to all commercial activities within Canada.
Radwanski was in the headlines last week for criticizing his colleague, federal Information Commissioner John Reid, for trying to obtain and release Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s personal agendas in response to a complainant. In a publicly released letter, Radwanski called the effort tantamount to “informational rape.”
While declining to comment in detail over the head-butting, Radwanski told the CIPS conference that the law is clear that agendas are personal information and are not available under the Access to Information Act.
He also noted that Canada needs to reject the widespread notion of “balancing” the privacy of individuals against the interests of society. “The interests of society include the privacy of individuals,” he said.
“If we make too many tradeoffs, accept to many calls to give up a little privacy here, a little privacy there, soon we’ll have no real privacy, and no real freedom.”
Radwanski said one-stop online shopping for government services can’t be accomplished without violating privacy principals — and that separate “silos” or databases act as built-in protection against the profiling of individuals, or the collection of different bits of information for different purposes.
“The profiling of citizens is a hallmark of surveillance societies. The building of dossiers on individuals, tracking their activities and their interactions with government, has no place in an open and democratic society. It is the end of anonymity,” he said.
Radwanski explained that businesses need to realize the worth of privacy to their customers.
“Respecting the fundamental human right of privacy is as much a part of your goal as the bottom line of the ledger. In fact, it’s a key part of the bottom line. So build it into your system.”
Meanwhile, two high-profile Albertans were recognized at a gala CIPS award dinner Tuesday evening for their contributions to advancing the ICT industry. Former Innovation and Science Minister Lorne Taylor and Robert Church, chairman of the Alberta Science and Research Authority, were credited for promoting economic competitiveness and providing an infrastructure for individual companies and their growth.
