In The News: US Prosecutor Obliges Suspect to Surrender Passcode
A recent development in a 2017 case in Louisiana has resulted in a suspect being compelled to surrender the passcode to his smartphone. In the case of State of Louisiana v. Sean-Paul Gott [1], one of the four defendants was ordered under a ‘Motion to Compel’ to reveal the password to his smartphone, which was […]
In the News: Facial Recognition Software at Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics
The organizing committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games announced their plans to use facial recognition software as a security measure to verify the identities of athletes, officials, and media representatives at entry checkpoints. The intention behind the added technology is for increased security, comfort, and convenience, as stated in recent press release [1]. […]
Canvas Exposed: The little problem with UBC’s big, expensive new tool
The little problem with UBC’s big, expensive new tool Last year, UBC introduced a new learning management system. Canvas by Instructure was rolled out to replace the aging and underperforming Blackboard Connect. When classes begin this September, UBC’s more than 60,000 students will only be using the new Canvas system. Learning management systems are useful […]
In the News: Facebook Pushes for Facial Recognition Software
Despite facing legal trouble in the US for violating state privacy laws by misusing biometric data [1], or the ongoing investigation into the data mining practices of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook recently announced plans to implement facial recognition software in Canada and the European Union. This software was originally introduced within the United States […]
Guest Blog Post: Predictive Policing in the Nation’s Capital
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 […]
Digital Rights Now – Sign the Petition
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, […]
New on the Podcast: The City with Eyes
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 […]
How to Access Information Collected From Your Digital Accounts
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 […]
Technology companies are updating their privacy policies for their benefit, not yours
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. […]
#DeleteFacebook? An Investigation into the Cambridge Analytica Scandal Part 2
As we learned in Part 1 of this series, Global Science Research (GSR), Facebook, and Cambridge Analytica have each been the subjects of recent controversy for their respective roles in mining data from over 50 million Facebook profiles. While we can investigate how each company contributed to this event, we must also examine our […]
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