Guest Blog Post: Bridging the Digital Divide along BC's Connected Coast

Guest Blog Post: Bridging the Digital Divide along BC’s Connected Coast

By aaron dishy on June 25, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

 

As those living in communities along British Columbia’s rugged coastline know quite well, the internet connection isn’t always great. Up and down speeds and long periods of disconnection have for decades been standard to coastal BC. However, there has finally been some good news: on March 13th 2018, it was announced that many of the province’s coastal communities would receive improved digital infrastructure, in the form of a subsea fibre-optic cable running from Prince Rupert to Vancouver, with landings at multiple coastal communities along its route. Small communities across the North Coast, Kitimat-Stikine, Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, Powell River, and Vancouver Island will receive $83.6 million dollars in combined funding from Federal and Provincial Governments, alongside private investors to fund the cable [1]. It will benefit 187 communities that line the province’s coast, 57 of which are First Nations communities. According to the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, Navdeep Bains, these improvements will facilitate rural financial development, increase access to different types of information, and bridge the disparity between Canadians who have access to the internet and other information technologies, and those who don’t – otherwise known as the Canadian digital divide. Over the next months, it looks like the coast is going to get a lot more connected [2]. 

The long list of promises made by the Federal and Provincial governments however, brings new questions about what makes for an improved digital experience for peoples across BC. Can infrastructure alone make these promises a reality? Will communities receiving improved internet access have the necessary skills to navigate the online world? Canadian digital policy needs to be wary here of the assumption that infrastructure alone can bridge gaps in digital literacy that so notably separates coastal communities from metropolitan British Columbia. One solution may be to include additional digital policy which attributes a portion of the funds dedicated to digital infrastructure, directly towards the development of relevant, regional online content. By promoting local online material, additional incentive is created for coastal communities to develop advanced digital literacy skills and create coastal user-generated content. With this joint program of improved broadband infrastructure in collaboration with policies that finance local online content production, the coastal digital divide can be taken seriously as a fundamental impediment to community success. 

This two-sided approach might be the commitment necessary to support the active improvement of coastal internet. First, with increases in digital participation, developing local content can become a mechanism for employment, outside of the forestry and fishing industries upon which many coastal communities traditionally depend [3]. As recommended by Rural British Columbia Discussion Series, through the promotion of local content, residents play an active role in promoting engagement with emerging employment sectors (such as technology and digital media) in previously underserved rural areas [4]. Simultaneously, this digital independence supports the sharing of local and oral histories, traditional knowledge, as well as a heightened sense of place, crucial to communities along the coast [5]. This is also necessary in facilitating processes of decolonization in digital policy, as it gives the peoples of the coast the digital opportunities they are entitled to on their own terms. Increased digital literacy then initiates a cyclical process of content creation, opportunity and financial self-reliance for the benefit of coastal communities [6]. Policy frameworks should move beyond the naive assumption that infrastructure alone will guide digital participation, and instead looks to a community-based framework that increases the breadth and depth of the offerings available on the open internet to citizens of coastal BC.

 

This piece was published as part of our guest blogger series! Aaron is a graduate student from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, who answered our call for submissions.

If you’re interested in contributing a guest blog post to Digital Tattoo, please contact our editorial team at: digital.tattoo@ubc.ca

*Banner image used under CC BY 2.0 from Flickr user jim.

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Guest Blog Post: Predictive Policing in the Nation’s Capital

By mitch jackson on June 21, 2018 | Tagged with , , , ,

 

On October 24th 2016, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) launched the Ottawa Police Strategic Operations Centre (OPSOC), an initiative to “use crime information to improve public and officer safety” [1]. A February 2017 article appearing on Motherboard, a Vice News channel, instead labelled OPSOC as a manifestation of a larger movement in police forces towards “predictive policing” [2]. This is known as the collection and manipulation of data to “identify potential future criminals and to direct the patrolling of areas based on an analysis of historical crime data, records of arrests, and the known social networks of criminals” [3]. This particular example in Ottawa allows us to see how these policing systems are rationalized and how they evade accountability.

Rationalizing Surveillance

According to a Canadian Police Staffing Symposium Summary Report, OPSOC “assisted with over 70 calls for service in the first 10 days of operations including a gun call at high school, a demonstration on Parliament Hill, as well as missing persons, an armed robbery, a suicidal person with a firearm…” [4]. What is notable about this description is that it places a protest – a basic and fundamental act of democracy – with descriptions of high risk events. If demonstrations are continued to be labelled as high risk events, the rationale for surveilling demonstrations (and those who attend them) becomes relatively easy for the police service. Justification for any exercise of power becomes easy when armed with technologies that promote efficiency.

Mark Andrejevic (2016) writes that “security serves as an alibi for…warrantless data collection, and rapid, preemptive response”[5]. Andrejevic sees predictive policing as a “scenario of securitization” which “models future scenarios to act on them in the present” [6] . When the OPS speaks of OPSOC’s role in “frontline, day-to-day operations,” as well as on-scene “situational awareness” via massive amounts of information, they are speaking of a “fantasized perfection of prediction” [7].

Obscuring Accountability

There are many privacy, ethical and accountability concerns associated with OPSOC and predictive policing in general. According to Keith Guzik (2009), privacy is essential for the existence of a public, and “security of the public sphere allows individuals to come together to discuss social problems” [8]. A public that is under intense surveillance, however, is unable to accomplish that discussion.

Helen Nissenbaum (1996) writes that “lives, well being and quality of life are vulnerable to poor system design” [9]. This takes on a more dire tone when these systems are intended for policing, in that the police have abilities not only to regulate and protect lives, but also to take them away. This isn’t to say that OPSOC has poor system design, but rather that it is difficult for a civilian to assess the quality of the system as it is hidden in the “black-box” that we associate with algorithmic culture. OPSOC has a certain invisibility because it operates behind the modern fortress of the police station and behind the tinted windows of police cruisers. The ethics and accountability of policing, at this point in time, can only be interrogated when it is materialized into visible violence or discrimination. And even then, the interrogation is brief and does not often yield system altering results.

The materiality of OPS policies come to fruition with items like the reinforced gloves – which have been compared to brass knuckles in a report by the CBC – that were used by OPS Constable Daniel Montsion in the murder of 37-year-old Abdirahman Abdi [10]. If there is little accountability in an event like Abdi’s death, something so jarringly present in the physical world, then there is little hope for accountability in regard to the algorithms that run OPSOC. The militarization of police forces doesn’t just include the body armour, the tanks, and the helicopters. It includes software as well.

 

This piece was published as part of our guest blogger series! Mitch is a graduate student from the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, who answered our call for submissions.

If you’re interested in contributing a guest blog post to Digital Tattoo, please contact our editorial team at: digital.tattoo@ubc.ca

*Banner image used under CC BY 2.0 from Flickr user Gregg Stokes.

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Digital Rights Now – Sign the Petition

By bryan short on June 18, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , ,

A few months ago, we proposed a bill of rights for learning data. While the need for reform within the context of our university systems is still real, events like the Cambridge Analytica scandal—which occurred in the interim—highlight the need for all Canadians to have a bill of rights to protect their digital identities.

Today, DigitalRightsNow.ca and DroitsNumeriques.ca were launched to do just that. It’s a campaign to reform Canada’s legal framework around digital rights in order to protect our economy, democracy, and quality of life. The campaign is a collaboration between Tech Reset Canada, The Digital Justice Lab, and The Centre for Digital Rights.

The campaign is an appeal to members of parliament in the House of Commons to take issues like data collection, ownership, use and rights, seriously. In addition, the campaign encourages government to create models for:

  • Privacy as a public good
  • Consent
  • Equitable internet access
  • Fair competition
  • Future prosperity

We encourage anyone who wishes to see greater consideration from government when it comes to these issues to sign the petition and show your support for digital rights for all Canadians.

The draft principles were composed in part by Bianca Wylie, the guest on our last episode of the podcast, and Taylor Owen, from the episode before.

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New on the Podcast: The City with Eyes

By bryan short on June 13, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Digital Tattoo Podcast – Episode 5

As the government of Canada slowly prepares to embrace the future of city building, a small plot of land races ahead to become the nation’s first smart city. Sidewalk Labs, a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc., is developing a proposal for 12 acres on the downtown Toronto waterfront.

They’re proposing to harness the power of technology to optimize the urban environment and improve daily life for residents through vast data collection. But critics observe that Canada’s current legal framework doesn’t contain provisions to protect against the potential privacy violations that may occur from these new forms of embedded surveillance.

The clock is ticking on the proposal and a decision about if Toronto’s waterfront will be home to Canada’s first smart city will be made within the year.

This is: The City with Eyes.

In this episode, we review the history of the area that may become home to Canada’s first smart city and talk about where the proposal stands today. Then, we speak with Bianca Wylie, one the most vocal critics of the process, to hear some of her concerns about the proposal. And finally, we talk with students on UBC’s Vancouver campus to find out their thoughts about privacy, technology, and living with in a smart city like the one being proposed on the Toronto waterfront.

UPDATE: On June 26, 2018, thirteen days after this episode was published, Sidewalk Toronto announced that they’re extending their timeline to align with Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge.

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How to Access Information Collected From Your Digital Accounts

By Jason Cheung on June 11, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Access My Info’s Logo https://accessmyinfo.org/

 

Terms and Conditions – TL;DR: Take My Data

Terms and conditions of use often bind users to agreements in unsuspecting ways about the use, storage, sale, transfer, and deletion of their account, data, or identity. Examples include popular software such as Twitter, which stipulates that they can profit from selling your pictures without prior consent, or Google’s ability to track your web search queries to target advertisements towards you.

There is now a solution for Canadian web users to request access to data held by applications and software they commonly use. If these uses of personal data may seem overreaching, or if you want to become more informed as to what data companies collect on you, Canadians are entitled to finding out what personal data is kept on file about them by both public and private corporations, and a tool called Access My Info can make this process easier.

What is Access My Info?

Access My Info (https://accessmyinfo.org/#/) is a website built by The Citizen Lab designed to help Canadians create letters requesting access to personal information and electronic documents held by businesses and telecommunication companies. They focus on three categories of businesses: Dating Apps, Fitness Apps, and Telecommunication Provider Companies, and help Canadians generate request of access letters for each company that a user selects.

Access My Info Homepage

 

Who is The Citizen Lab?

The Citizen Lab, part of the University of Toronto’s Munk School

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, which focuses on research, development, and high-level strategic policy and legal engagement at the intersection of information and communication technologies, human rights, and global security. Their research includes: investigating digital espionage against civil society; documenting Internet filtering and other technologies and practices that impact freedom of expression online; analyzing privacy, security, and information controls of popular applications; and examining transparency and accountability mechanisms relevant to the relationship between corporations and state agencies regarding personal data and other surveillance activities. Visit their website to find out more at: https://citizenlab.ca/

Why Do Companies Have to Respond to My Request for Information?

In Canada, there are two separate Federal Acts concerning how Canadian information is stored by government (public), and non-government, (private) entities. These laws are enforced by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

The Privacy Act (1983), outlines how the Government of Canada collects, handles, and stores the personal data of Canadians. The six main points of the act are as follows:

  • A government institution may not collect personal information unless it relates directly to an operating program or activity of the institution (section 4).
  • With some exceptions, when a government institution collects an individual’s personal information from the individual, it must inform the individual of the purpose for which the information is being collected (section 5(2)).
  • With some exceptions, personal information under the control of a government institution may be used only for the purpose for which the information was obtained or for a use consistent with that purpose, unless the individual consents (section 7).
  • With some exceptions, personal information under the control of a government institution may not be disclosed, unless the individual consents (section 8).
  • Every Canadian citizenor permanent resident has the right to be given access to personal information about the individual under the control of a government institution that is reasonably retrievable by the government institution, and request correction if the information is inaccurate (section 12).
  • The Privacy Commissioner of Canadareceives and investigates complaints, including complaints that an individual was denied access to his or her personal information held by a government institution (section 29).

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA, 2000), outlines how private sector entities collect, use and disclose personal information in the course of commercial business. The act outlines rights for individuals as well as regulations that private entities must follow when handling or using personal data in Canada.

 

The law gives individuals the right to:

  • know why an organization collects, uses or discloses their personal information;
  • expect an organization to collect, use or disclose their personal information reasonably and appropriately, and not use the information for any purpose other than that to which they have consented;
  • know who in the organization is responsible for protecting their personal information;
  • expect an organization to protect their personal information by taking appropriate security measures;
  • expect the personal information an organization holds about them to be accurate, complete and up-to-date;
  • obtain access to their personal information and ask for corrections if necessary; and
  • complain about how an organization handles their personal information if they feel their privacy rights have not been respected.

The law requires organizations to:

  • obtain consent when they collect, use or disclose their personal information;
  • supply an individual with a product or a service even if they refuse consent for the collection, use or disclosure of your personal information unless that information is essential to the transaction;
  • collect information by fair and lawful means; and
  • have personal information policies that are clear, understandable and readily available.

However, the Privacy Act and Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act are federal level regulations. In addition to these acts, each province, and some municipalities have their own privacy legislation, such as Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (1990) and Personal Health Information Protection Act (2004).

How to Make Your Own Request for Access of Information

  1. Go to https://accessmyinfo.org/#/
  2. Select if you want to request information from dating applications, fitness trackers, or telecommunication companies
  3. Select the company that you wish to create a request for access of information letter for
  4. In the checklist, select the type of personal data you wish to access from the company
  5. Enter the personal information that you provided for the company or service that you selected (your username for that company’s service, or the e-mail you used to sign up for that service)
  6. Click ‘Next’ and you will receive a generated letter for the company you selected that you can copy and paste, as well as the contact information of the receiving party so you can easily send your letter of request for access of information!

What’s in the Box? How Do I Know Requests Will Be Answered in Full?

The Privacy Act and Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act provide the rules and grounds for government and private companies to accept or reject received access to information requests. Section 16 of the Privacy Act and Section 9 of the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act outline the exceptions in which access to information requests can be denied. These exceptions include data protected by ongoing criminal investigations, diplomatic immunity, corporate information confidentiality, solicitor-client privilege and other exceptions.

As well, these Acts outline the fees for these requests. The Privacy Act states that “every individual who is a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident within the meaning of subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has a right to and shall, on request, be given access to:

(a) any personal information about the individual contained in a personal information bank; and

(b) any other personal information about the individual under the control of a government institution with respect to which the individual is able to provide sufficiently specific information on the location of the information as to render it reasonably retrievable by the government institution.”

However, this statement in the federal Act stating that all Canadians have a right for the access of government-held private information contradicts with provincial legislations for access to information requests, such as Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPA), which adopts a user-pay principal. This means that requests for access to information held by the government can potentially cost a person upwards of $100 for charges in ‘search time’, ‘record preparation’, ‘computer usage’ and ‘services outside the institution’.

Likewise, Section 8 in the Personal Information and Electronic Documents Act does not limit the maximum amount of money that a private business or organization can charge people to respond to their access to information requests. Section 8 of PIPEDA states:

“Costs for responding

(6) An organization may respond to an individual’s request at a cost to the individual only if

(a) the organization has informed the individual of the approximate cost; and

(b) the individual has advised the organization that the request is not being withdrawn.”

Furthermore, the existence of a ‘Complaints’ section in both the Privacy Act (Section 29) and PIPEDA (Section 11) illustrates the concerning and common occurrence of incomplete responses to requested access to information. The two acts outline the recourse that a person has to complain about refused or incomplete responses to their requests. In requests for both public and private entities, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will investigate substantial complaints and report their findings to the individual who filed the complaint originally.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Sources and Articles You May Be Interested In

https://accessmyinfo.org/#/

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90f31

https://www.ontario.ca/document/freedom-information-and-privacy-manual/fees

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-21/

http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/A-1/

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/access-to-personal-information/accessing-your-personal-information/

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/04p03

https://lthub.ubc.ca/projects/learning-analytics/governance/learning-data-committee/

https://citizenlab.ca/2018/02/approaching-access-look-consumer-personal-data-requests-canada/

https://option-consommateurs.org/about/who-are-we/?lang=en

https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/privacy-topics/access-to-personal-information/accessing-your-personal-information/

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Digital Piracy – Who Decides What is Considered Pirated Material? The Changing Face of Copyright Judgement in Canada (Part 3)

By Jason Cheung on June 7, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fair Play Canada Logo, https://www.fairplaycanada.com/

What is the IPRA?

The Internet Piracy Review Agency (IPRA) is a proposed non-profit corporation by a coalition of companies including Bell Canada, Rogers, Cineplex, CBC, Corus, Toronto International Film Festival, and Cinémas Guzzo (collectively known as Fair Play Canada) to maintain a list of websites that have hosted or distributed pirated material and force all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Canada to block access to those websites.

Is this Good or Bad?

Critics of the proposal for the creation of the IPRA claim that any sort of gatekeeping on the equal access to the internet is considered breaking net neutrality. Jan Krämer, Lukas Wiewiorra, and Christof Weinhardt define net neutrality in their 2013 text Net neutrality: A progress report, published in the journal Telecommunications Policy. They say “Net neutrality prohibits Internet service providers from speeding up, slowing down or blocking Internet traffic based on its source, ownership or destination (Krämer, Wiewiorra, & Weinhardt, 2013, p.796). Find out more about Net Neutrality in our post: The End of the Neutral Net?

Who Decides What is Considered Piracy in Canada?

A danger that lies inherent in allowing an independent third party to dictate what is and is not considered piracy is dangerous, as it devalues the avenues of recourse available in the judicial system. Consider our discussion on the exception of copyright protection in Canada for the purposes of Fair Dealing, as covered in Part 2 of this series. Originally, claims of fair dealing are handled by the court system with the final decision resting on a judge that is impartial to the interests of both parties. Instead, the IPRA is proposing that the deciding power of what is and what is not copyright infringement should instead be transferred to the CRTC. In a statement on Fair Play Canada’s website comparing the “Myths and Facts” of the IPRA, Fair Play Canada stated that:

“The CRTC is a quasi-judicial administrative tribunal that enforces prohibitions on sending commercial messages and making unwanted telephone calls, and dictates rules regarding what can and cannot be broadcast on TV, all with the same or less court oversight than the proposed regime”.

Instead of respecting the authority of law, it seems that Fair Play Canada is asserting their position of judicial legitimacy by claiming that since the CRTC is able to currently dictate what content can and cannot be shown or heard on TV or radio (vulgarity, gore, pornography etc.), that they should be able to extend those privileges to dictate what Canadians can and cannot see on the internet. The last line of their statement is the most worrisome, as it indicates that they already have little court oversight for their control of television and radio, and that they expect the Government of Canada to continue a passive, lenient and laissez-faire position on the actions that the CRTC does to the government’s citizens.

What Do You Think?

What is your reaction to the attempt of a private company to set up an institution that governs what is considered copyright infringement? Let us know by commenting to this article below. In your opinion, does it make a difference whether a private or public entity has power to say what is and is not copyright infringement and block access to certain websites?

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

Be sure to catch up on the first and second parts of this series:
“What is the Definition of Piracy?” and “Canadian Copyright Law: Fair Use and Fair Dealing in Canadian Law”

Articles You May Be Interested In / Sources

 

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Digital Piracy – Canadian Copyright Law: Fair Use and Fair Dealing in Canadian Law (Part 2)

By Jason Cheung on May 31, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Giulia Forsythe – Fair Dealing (CC BY-NC-SA 2,9 License) https://flic.kr/p/dRkXwP

 

In the last part of our series, we looked at what Piracy was, and saw that it was dependent on the legal copyright protection of works within a country. Now let’s take a look at what Canadian law says about copyright and copyright protection. The Copyright Act of Canada, signed in 1921, establishes the legal boundaries of the use and distribution rights of creative and artistic works in Canada.

You can find the latest version of the Copyright Act of Canada here: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-42/. It was last updated on June 19, 2017. In this article, we will go over what protections works have in Canada, and the Fair Dealing exceptions for copying work for research, private study, education, satire, parody, criticism, review or news reporting.

Brief History of the Copyright Act of Canada

The Copyright Act of Canada was preceded by British copyright law and the Imperial Copyright Act of 1842. It was not until Canada became a country in 1867 that the British North America Act transferred full control of legislature to the government of Canada. The first Canadian Copyright was written in 1875, and it sought to lay out the grounds for Canadian copyright laws on ‘literary, scientific and artistic works or compositions’, with an initial term of 28 years, as opposed to the lifetime of the creator set out in the British Imperial Copyright Act of 1842. The Copyright Act of Canada has been updated, revised, and modified a number of times throughout the years, and has been changed to include digital files, encryption, and digital re-distribution of files as well.

Protections for Copyrighted Works

What protections do works have in Canada? In Canada, copyright applies to “every original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work”. In comparison to the 28 year initial term of the 1875 version, the modern Copyright Act of Canada sets the initial copyright term as the life of the author, plus the full year of his or her death, and an additional 50 years following the author’s death. In Section 6 of the Copyright Act:

“The term for which copyright shall subsist shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by this Act, be the life of the author, the remainder of the calendar year in which the author dies, and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year.”

In addition to copyright, the Copyright Act of Canada also sets out ‘Moral Rights’ to works, which are defined in Section 14.1 of the Act as “the right to the integrity of the work and, in connection with an act mentioned in section 3, the right, where reasonable in the circumstances, to be associated with the work as its author by name or under a pseudonym and the right to remain anonymous”. This provides copyright owners with a peace of mind that their work won’t be adjusted slightly and cheapened by similar knock-offs.

Fair Dealing Exemptions

Fair Dealing is an exception in the Canadian Copyright Act that outlines the permitted unauthorized use of copyrighted materials for specific, mandated purposes. In Canada, these purposes include: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review, or news reporting. For research and private study, education, parody and satire, no special requirements are required. For criticism, review, and news reporting, the source and author must be named to constitute fair dealing. The Copyright Act of Canada, Section 29 says the following:

 

Research, private study, etc.

s.29 Fair dealing for the purpose of research, private study, education, parody or satire does not infringe copyright.

Criticism or review

s.29.1 Fair dealing for the purpose of criticism or review does not infringe copyright if the following are mentioned:

(a) the source; and

(b) if given in the source, the name of the

(i) author, in the case of a work,

(ii) performer, in the case of a performer’s performance,

(iii) maker, in the case of a sound recording, or

(iv) broadcaster, in the case of a communication signal.

News reporting

s.29.2 Fair dealing for the purpose of news reporting does not infringe copyright if the following are mentioned:

(a) the source; and

(b) if given in the source, the name of the

(i) author, in the case of a work,

(ii) performer, in the case of a performer’s performance,

(iii) maker, in the case of a sound recording, or

(iv) broadcaster, in the case of a communication signal.

Flipping the Table: What Copyright Protection Does Canada Provide for Your Works?

The government of Canada has made a guide for copyright available to the public. In the guide, they mention that the Canadian Copyright Act automatically protects all published work by a creator. However, in copyright disputes, registered (and certified) copyrights are recognized by the Act as the legal owner of a work. In section 2.2 of the Copyright Act, it defines a ‘published work’ as:

  • 2(1)For the purposes of this Act, publication means
    • (a)in relation to works,
      • (i)making copies of a work available to the public,
      • (ii)the construction of an architectural work, and
      • (iii)the incorporation of an artistic work into an architectural work, and
    • (b)in relation to sound recordings, making copies of a sound recording available to the public,

but does not include

  • (c)the performance in public, or the communication to the public by telecommunication, of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work or a sound recording, or
  • (d)the exhibition in public of an artistic work.

It is also noteworthy to mention that the Canadian Copyright Act also protects works created and published by anonymous authors. Anonymous authors can enjoy 50-70 years of copyright protection as outlined by the act. However, these works cannot be registered copyrighted works, as registration requires authors to provide identification. The Act mentions that anonymous works are protected for whichever period is shorter:

  • (a)a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year, and
  • (b)a term consisting of the remainder of the calendar year of the making of the work and a period of seventy-five years following the end of that calendar year

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

 

Articles You May Be Interested In / Sources

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Social Media and Mental Health

By dominique rivera on May 30, 2018 | Tagged with , , ,

 

In 2017 users spent approximately two hours a day on social media.  Surprisingly, this amounts to five years and four months of a person’s life spent solely on social media [1] There have been connections made between mental health concerns and social media consumption throughout the years. What is triggering these links with mental health issues, is it the consumption of data? Is it healthy to have an abundant of data on the internet about ourselves?  What effect does this copious and uncontrollable data have on our society?

The Problem

Social media creates a malleable platform for people to connect to others, but how does this constant barrage of information about others affect our mental health? There are three main problems when dealing with social media and mental health: the blurred distinction between real life and life on social media (social media becoming an extension of ourselves), the addiction/attachment to social media and the stigma that comes with social media.

What is Mental Health?

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Mental Health as “a state of well-being in which individual can realise his or her own potential, cope with the normal stresses of life, work productively, and make a contribution to the community”[2].  It has been noted by The World Health Organization that depression is “…one of the main causes of disability worldwide. Globally, an estimated 300 million people are affected by depression. More women are affected than men” [3].

Signs of depression can be: “sad, despairing mood that”:

  • is present most days and lasts most of the day
  • lasts for more than two weeks
  • impairs the person’s performance at work, at school or in social relationships.

Other symptoms of​​ depression include:

  • changes in appetite and weight
  • sleep problems
  • loss of interest in work, hobbies, people or sex
  • withdrawal from family members and friends
  • feeling useless, hopeless, excessively guilty, pessimistic or having low self-esteem
  • agitation or feeling slowed down
  • irritability
  • fatigue
  • trouble concentrating, remembering and making decision
  • crying easily, or feeling like crying but being not able to
  • thoughts of suicide (which should always be taken seriously)
  • a loss of touch with reality, hearing voices (hallucinations) or having strange ideas (delusions).” [4]

What is Social Media?

 “We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.” danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison [5]

Social media allows people to easily connect with others.  From old to new friends, family and colleagues these connections can occur at any time anywhere in the world.  Social media provides a platform that allows for conversation to be created and discussed through an online community. Social media opens new communication avenues allowing novel ways for relationships to develop. Despite these benefits, there are concerns with Social Media which include:

Extension of Ourselves

An imbalance exists when people are consuming too much social media in their daily lives. Phones/devices have become an extension of ourselves and have blurred the boundaries between real life and life on social media [6].

Social Media can act as a middle ground for people to connect with others without having to physically interact. This may benefit people with some disabilities such as those with hearing loss, physically challenged, autism or social anxiety [7], but it does not fulfill the need of physical social interaction that many humans require [8].

Society has become reliant on social media to provide world event updates (such as Canada’s recent implementation of mobile emergency alerts) and self-promotion [9].  As social media becomes more engrained in society the blur between what we see and do in real life and what we post and say on social media as an extension of ourselves will dissolve and become indistinguishable [10]. It is important for social media users to be aware of these concerns.

 

Addiction to Social Media

“To a social media addict, every event in life is a chance to post. To a smoker, every gap in the day is a chance to light up a smoke.” Judson Brewer [11]

Do you find yourself mindlessly opening your phone or computer and automatically checking Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or Twitter?  If so, you are not alone. Social Media has addictive qualities and users feel compelled to constantly check what is going on with their peers and in the world. But is this addiction to sharing data good for our mental health?

CMHA has stated that social Media has the tendency to “…[alter people’s] mood, motivation, concentration and producing a dissociating and disinhibiting experience for users” [12].  Though the addiction of social media users are more likely to gravitate towards addictive and compulsive behaviours [13].

We lack cognitive control when we have bad habits or addiction “….[with] cognitive control, we’re using cognition to control our behaviour. Unfortunately this is also the first part of our brain that goes offline when we get stressed out which, isn’t that helpful” [14].

We are addicted to social media because we are trying to create the best versions of ourselves through social media. We want to promote ourselves through a brand that we think we are and if we do not get the feedback we want to receive it affects us emotionally [15]. “We curate a self online that is the self we want other people to see. We preach authenticity but practice self-curation. We alienate ourselves from who we really are” [16].

Stigma of Social Media

Studies have indicated that some users of social media have attempted or questioned eradicating social media entirely from their lives [17].  This however, is neither common nor easy to do.  There is a stigma that suggests completely removing social media signifies that there is a problem with the user (who becomes an outsider), and that they will become uninformed (missing out on vital things). Is this stigma true?

Social media encourages the FOMO (fear of missing out) phenomena.  People fear if they do not post something or go on social media they will be missing out on important things, or will be forgotten. This is especially true at events which feature music, food and fashion.

Taking advantage of this stigma, businesses have designed their restaurants and stores to be aesthetically pleasing, which encourages users to take photos of their environments to entice others in what they are missing. Reinforcing this mantra is the popular slogan “Instagram/Snapchat it or it didn’t happen.”

Social gatherings in general have changed due to social media, altering people’s perception and making comparisons between ourselves and others easier. Social norms now include posts about your every activity and outings allowing others to gage your standard of living. With these norms, it’s not surprising that privacy concerns are becoming threatening. If North Americans are exhibiting an unhealthy reliance on social media, what can be done to make this healthy?

Solutions

There are no easy solutions to a social media addiction.  However, there are steps that can help. Below is a list of suggestions:

1. Disengage yourself from social media by putting your phone on airplane mode, deleting your social media apps from your phone or hiding your social media apps in folders making it harder to access.

2. If you are out with friends or family try leaving your phone at home or not within easy reach.

3. If you use social media for work purposes, try scheduling your posts ahead of time. You can also try setting aside one hour in your day to reply to all social media queries. Leave the rest of your day for other mindful tasks.

4. Use one or more of the apps below to remove yourself from technology:

  • Social Fever
  • Offtime
  • QualityTime
  • SPACE-Break Phone Addiction
  • Flipd: Distraction Blocker
  • Mute
  • Moment
  • Forest
  • Hold

5. Apps to enhance your mindfulness and reduce your social media dependency include:

  • Headspace
  • The Mindfulness App
  • Calm
  • Mindbody
  • Insight Timer
  • Aura
  • Omvana
  • Stop, Breathe & Think

6. Try practicing Mindful Social Media: https://www.mindful.org/before-you-scroll-try-this-social-media-practice/

Social media is now fully engrained in our society and is something we must contend with. Learning how to overcome the barriers that create mental health issues is crucial. When dealing with overwhelming quantities of social media posts each day, remember to take time aside for mindfulness and practice being in the present moment.

 

Further Reading:

Alone Together by Sherry Turkle

Mindful tech: how to bring balance to our digital lives by David M. Levy

i-Minds: How Cell Phones, Computers, Gaming, and Social Media are Changing our Brains, our Behavior, and the Evolution of our Species by Mari K. Swingle

The big disconnect: the story of technology and loneliness by Giles Slade

The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love—How We Get Hooked & How We Can Break Bad Habits by Judson Brewer

 

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Technology companies are updating their privacy policies for their benefit, not yours

By bryan short on May 25, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , ,

You may have noticed that a lot of companies are updating their privacy policies. It’s not a coincidence. And these major corporations haven’t suddenly begun caring about the privacy of their users; in fact, many are still profiting from exploiting the information that they collect. These companies are updating their privacy policies to protect themselves.

The recent surge in privacy policy updates is due to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulations becoming law on May 25th, 2018. Meaning, if these companies didn’t adhere to the new regulations by that time, they could face legal action.

Although the new regulations are specifically created for the privacy and data protection of people within the E.U., they also have jurisdiction over the export of personal data in other areas. For this reason, companies all around the world are updating their privacy policies in order to comply.

Despite the vast amount of updates in the last couple of weeks, the new regulations don’t come as a surprise. The General Data Protection Regulations have been known since 2016, but many companies delayed in adopting them because they upset their business model. If they really cared about your privacy, they would have implemented these changes years ago.

The General Data Protection Regulations challenge what has become a conventional business model for the technology sector: the commodification of personal data. The new regulations assert that the highest levels of privacy should be inherent to the systems and products we use, rather than an after thought.

The guiding principle on which these regulations are based is called Privacy by Design.

Instead of opting out of invasive data collection, users are asked to opt-in, and that consent is exclusive to a single category of use, even if personal data is anonymized. Should a company wish to use personal data for a different purpose—for example, commercial use instead of scientific—they would not be able to without consent for the user, which would be impossible if the data was effectively anonymized, which is all part of the new regulations.

Although many have attributed the recent uptick in privacy policy updates to the Facebook / Cambridge Analytica scandal, their optimism is unfortunately misplaced. Technology companies are not adopting these new measures for the protection of their users—although that may be an unintended, yet beneficial, side effect; they’re updating their privacy policies to protect themselves.

What do you think these new regulations mean for you, no matter where you’re located? No doubt, the privacy policies for many of the tools you use everyday have been rewritten, but will it have any impact on your daily life? Does it bring you any reassurance knowing that technologies companies are taking these E.U. laws seriously?

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Digital Piracy – What is the Definition of Piracy? (Part 1)

By Jason Cheung on May 24, 2018 | Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

David Cox – Pirate’s Isle (1852). Work in Public Domain

Piracy vs Copyright Infringement

When we talk about piracy, there are two definitions that are commonly used. Piracy, in the traditional sense, refers to maritime piracy, or the plundering and theft of goods from ships and other vessels. While traditional piracy is still common today, contemporary conceptions of piracy are a little bit different. According to Al-Rafee & Cronan, digital piracy is defined as “the illegal copying/downloading of copyrighted software and media files’’ (Al-Rafee & Cronan, 2007, p.528). However, there is a distinct difference between traditional piracy and digital piracy in terms of how the pirate comes to possess the pirated object (traditional piracy) or idea (digital piracy).

When objects are pirated, the owner is dispossessed of the item, and the item is gained by the pirate. In other words, traditional piracy can be described as theft of property, where one party loses something, and another gains. However, in the context of digital piracy, it is not objects, but ideas that are pirated. For example, when someone pirates a music album from an artist, they are not dispossessing the artist of their album, but obtaining unauthorized access to their musical ideas in the form of a copied album. This type of piracy can be described as copyright infringement.

Copyright infringement is understood as the use of works protected by copyright law without permission. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, copyright is defined as “the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something”. Since copyright is dependent on the copyright law of each country, what does Canada say about copyright infringement?

Attitudes and Perceptions of Piracy

Why does digital piracy occur? In their 2010 work, The Attitudes and Behaviours of Illegal Downloaders, Peter Williams, David Nicholas and Ian Rowlands point to several of the attitudes and behaviors that influence a person’s decision to pirate – including economic factors, perceptions of personal and corporate possessions, and anonymity.

Economic Factors

Studies by Lau, Hsu and Shiue (2008) have revealed the attitudinal positions of people that decide to pirate digital material, identifying that people may choose to pirate if they felt like they were being exploited by companies if they had bought a copy of software. As well, market demand was a dominant factor that determined if people committed piracy. If people thought the price charged by the owners of a digital product was too high, they were more likely to seek a pirated copy instead.

Perceptions of Personal and Corporate Possessions

In a 2004 study by Calluzzo and Cante, they discovered that college students are quite ethical when it comes to personal property, personal privacy, and theft. This seems to suggest that in personal encounters, students are not likely to engage in piracy of other people’s ideas. However, student attitudes towards corporate piracy was neutral, neither ethical nor unethical. Williams, Nicholas and Rowlands point out that this lack of an ethical judgement towards corporate piracy suggests that students do not regard corporate piracy as an ethical issue. They correlate this finding with Cronan and Al-Rafee’s 2007 study of university students, in which they discovered that students “didn’t feel a great deal of guilt about pirating digital media; that it was acceptable behavior. There was a low level of guilt (moral obligation) towards digital piracy” (p. 539).

“[Students] didn’t feel a great deal of guilt about pirating digital media; that it was acceptable behavior. There was a low level of guilt (moral obligation) towards digital piracy” (p. 539). – Timothy Paul Cronan & Sulaiman Al-Rafee, 2007.

Anonymity

Sameer Hinduja addresses the effect of anonymity on the decision to pirate digital media. In his 2008 work Deindividuation and Internet Software Piracy, he describes that anonymity, or the state of being unknown, is intrinsic to the medium of the internet. He goes on to posit that being anonymous contributes to the loss of identity when browsing the internet. When a person is de-individualized, they can “feel extricated from responsibility for his or her actions simply because that person no longer has an acute awareness of the identity of self and others” (p.392).

“When a person is de-individualized, they can feel extricated from responsibility for his or her actions” (Hinduja, 2008, p.392).

Perceptions of Information Freedom and Piracy as Information Liberation of a Public Good

Some people believe that since information is a public good, it should be shared freely and openly. Investopedia defines a public good is a “product that one individual can consume without reducing its availability to another individual, and from which no one is excluded”. In Brian Martin’s 1998 work Information Liberation: Challenging the Corruptions of Information Power, he describes that intellectual property is a form of information ownership. He addresses this problem by citing examples, such as the claims of ownership to a multitude of items, including the genetic code to genetically modified soybeans and cotton, and the privatization and appropriation of ideas in the form of patents from the possession of individuals to the possession of organizations. Martin states, “[Intellectual] property is an attempt to create an artificial scarcity in order to give rewards to a few at the expense of the many” (p. 33). For some, this philosophical belief that information should be a freely shared public good leads to pirate behaviour.

This article touched briefly on the definitions and literature on the topic of digital piracy. You can find out more information on what defines piracy, theft, and copyright infringement by searching for these concepts at your local library, or online journal databases, or within other academic resources. Here are the resources used in this article to help you get started. Be sure to check out part two of this series: “Who Decides Canadian Copyright?”

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not constitute legal or financial advice.

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