Meagan Bell argues that surveillance capitalism, the data-driven business model driving Google, Facebook and other Internet companies, weakens Canadians’ ability to defend democracy, human rights and the human future.
A coalition of consumer and privacy groups from the US, Canada and the European Union is urging Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to ensure that his company adopts the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “as a baseline standard” for all Facebook users around the world.
A global coalition of Internet infrastructure companies opposes the Bell Canada-led FairPlay Canada plan to block websites on the ground that the plan, which “lacks accountability and oversight”, would weaken both the Canadian economy and our Internet leadership globally.
Data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica’s scandalous harvesting and use of Facebook user data highlights the urgent need for robust public debate on the emerging problem of “surveillance capitalism” in our increasingly digital society, suggests Jennifer Cobbe, the co-ordinator of Cambridge University’s Trustworthy Technologies strategic research initiative.
The latest manifestation of the ongoing attack on digital rights and net neutrality in Canada, led by Bell Canada, proposes the creation of the so-called “Internet Piracy Review Agency” (IPRA), a dictatorship-style Internet policing agency that would facilitate the blocking of Canadians’ access to websites Bell and other leading Canadian Internet service providers dislike.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and his team at the Freedom of the Press Foundation have created Haven, a free and open source personal security system for journalists and human rights defenders. The app transforms your cheap second Android phone into a device capable of capturing and reporting intrusions to your physical space and possessions.
Democratic Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel dissented against the US Federal Communications Commission’s 3-2 vote to dismantle net neutrality. Read the the two dissenters’ statements.
The third round of negotiations over the modernization of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) kicked off in Ottawa on last week. Jeremy Malcolm, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s expert on the international dimensions of issues such as intellectual property, network neutrality, Internet governance, and trade, explains how Canada is pushing back against U.S. copyright demands during the talks.
