Blackboard Connect: Exposed (Blog 7)
The Data After a long period of waiting, and a short period of complaining, I’ve received my personal data from UBC’s Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard Connect. I’m impressed with, and unsettled by, the amount of data that I’ve been given. It’s from every course at UBC that I’ve ever been enrolled in, including those […]
Blackboard Connect: Exposed (Blog 6)
The History It’s been over 60 working days since I first made my request to UBC for access to my personal data that was collected and stored through their Learning Management System (LMS), Blackboard Connect. Under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), public institutions are advised to comply with these requests within 30 business days, […]
Digital Identity Digest (October)
US citizens can register to vote within Snapchat application In an appeal to its young audience, the popular and ephemeral video sharing application, Snapchat, is encouraging young people to vote by allowing them to register within the application. The campaign is in partnership with Democracy Works’ TurboVote, and its advertisements will automatically be displayed in Snapchat Stories for […]
Does technology help or hurt your productivity?
I found myself standing against the back wall of a huge lecture theatre in the Earth and Ocean Sciences Building on UBC’s Vancouver campus. The auditorium’s seats were filled with hundreds of teacher candidates—an audience that I would have imagined to be quite aware of issues of concentration and attention. Yet, the lecture theatre was filled […]
Digital Identity Digest (September)
Facebook is changing the way that WhatsApp works When Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014, there was a promise that the privacy of the popular messaging application’s millions of users’ wouldn’t be affected. That’s all changed with its new Terms of Service. The move is part of WhatsApp’s plan to monetize, and involves sharing phone numbers and analytical […]
Digital Identity Digest (August 21 – 27)
New Facebook application for teens presents privacy concerns Facebook released a new video sharing application called Lifestage this week that is intended for users under the age of 21. The social media company has been losing market share to ephemeral applications like Snapchat, and has been looking for ways to engage the young users who favour its […]
Blackboard Connect: Exposed (Part 5)
The 30 business days that FIPPA allows for a public body to provide personal information expired on August 19th, 2016. I reached out to the University Office of Counsel and asked them when I was going to receive my data, and was informed that because of the “large volume of responsive records” that they’re dealing […]
Digital Identity Digest (August 14 – 20)
Hackers targeting medical records For most of us, our largest concern relating to digital security is exposing our banking information to cybercriminals. Whether it’s our credit card numbers our private chequing or savings account information, we’re willing to endure safeguards like chip and pin protocols and highly secretive passwords. However, and perhaps because of all these security […]
Blackboard Connect: Exposed (Part 4)
As I continue waiting for the return of my data from UBC’s Office of Counsel, I’ve begun examining the structure of the Connect system. For a Learning Management System, Connect effectively manages the amount of information that students can learn from it. The system is divided into three roles: that of the student, who creates the majority […]
Blackboard Connect: Exposed (Part 3)
Meaningful consent is a term that describes a certain level of understanding reached between a user and a service in order to qualify that agreement as fair and ethical. UBC, a publicly funded institution, should strive for the highest degree of meaningfulness in their user agreements by clearly explaining how their services operate to their users. Although there’s a difference […]
