The Commerce Times

They know more about you than you think

At the Law and Business Students Association (LBSA) seminar held at Ryerson on Nov. 17, Dr. Ann Cavoukian spoke about the importance of embedding privacy measures into the “very defaulted design” of information technology, business practices and network infrastructure.

“The future lies in privacy by design and there is so much to be done,” said Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Students, professors and industry experts, including the Dean of TRSM, Dr. Ken Jones, all gathered in the Cara Commons in the Ted Rogers Building to hear Dr. Cavoukian speak about the latest in privacy controls and management.

Cavoukian mentioned in her speech that companies should start adopting a proactive approach rather than a reactive one when it comes to privacy protection, and the only way a company can do so is by building privacy measures in the core architecture of its technology.

“People have choices they can make in terms of connecting in privacy-protected environments.”

She came up with the concept of ‘Privacy by Design’ in the 90s, which ensured the protection of privacy by making it the default in the design of new technologies and business practices. Also, companies today collect more data than they require for a particular transaction, which is one practice Cavoukian would like to see discontinued in the future.

Cavoukian, who is regarded around the world as one of the leading privacy experts, is also Ontario’s first Information and Privacy Commissioner to be re-appointed for an unprecedented third-term, mainly because of her efforts in improving privacy protection and her efforts to making privacy built into information technologies.

Urging students to set up adequate privacy settings on their online social networking profiles, Cavoukian said that it is very important to connect with people in today’s world. One cannot ignore online social networking sites like Facebook, but at the same time it is important to take control of your privacy.

“People have choices they can make in terms of connecting in privacy-protected environments,” she said.

Matthew Armstrong, President of the LBSA, expressed satisfaction over the turnout and the response the event received. “We are incredibly happy with the presentation that we received from the information and privacy commissioner and we couldn’t be happier with the response we received from the students, faculty and industry representatives,” he said. Incidentally, this was also the first event the LBSA organized since it was formed earlier this year.

Emphasizing the importance of hard-work, passion and creativity, Cavoukian offered a few words of advice for students at the TRSM.

“Follow your heart; find a passion that you love, and then be prepared to work like crazy – twenty-four seven. You have to work very hard, but if it’s something you love, then you don’t mind because you love doing it. Creativity is underestimated. Try to think in a different way, so that you get a desired outcome that is different. Just keep trying,” she said.

Better privacy measures envisioned by experts like Cavoukian are the need of the hour, the question is whether companies and individuals would actually take substantial steps towards establishing such measures.