How did you celebrate Data Privacy Week? In Ottawa, the IAPP KnowledgeNet chairs organized a fantastic cocktail party that was extremely well-attended. It was a great mix of new and experienced privacy pros from such a wide range of sectors — lawyers, government, regulators, public and private sector practitioners, and students. There was even a painter, who I've put forward to get work done in my condo building.
People were chatting with one another about a range of topics. One thing I heard from a few folks was there may be some movement on Privacy Act reform. From my point view, things on the public-sector front have been too quiet for too long, so I'm glad there are still people working on fixing this embarrassment of a law and maybe even bringing it up to adequacy standards. A novel ambition and one that I think makes a lot of sense.
There was also a lot of talk at our gathering about Bill C-27 and speculation as to whether it is going to get passed before the next federal election that seems to be looming. Which way would you bet? I know that hearings resumed this week and are scheduled for the next little while, so at least there's some movement there. But what a shame it would be if an election blew it all out of the water.
One thing some folks are wondering was whether the privacy aspects of Bill C-27 will be separated out from the artificial intelligence provisions of the bill. When I first heard this idea, it sounded interesting because each component is deserving of its own serious study and debate, and my gauge of the many committee hearings thus far is that there's a lot more consternation about the AI component than the other aspects. However, despite this, it sounds like splitting things could be quite difficult procedurally.
Time will tell with Bill C-27. I just hope it's not too much time.
Also, you can't go anywhere or do anything without hearing about Taylor Swift, and our Ottawa KnowledgeNet was no different. Some people were talking about the villainous people who used AI to create explicit deepfakes of Swift. There are of course tons of old and new privacy issues arising with this example.
The Swift issue came up in my law school class this week as well. The students were curious as to what ramifications might arise from such an insidious act. In class, we had a good discussion, but what really stuck out was that the rapid pace at which things are changing is putting a real stress on our legal mechanisms. I am aware of some jurisdictions to try and address some this — I believe British Columbia is the first in Canada. But it seems like as soon as we pass a law, technology changes and bad actors find another way of crossing the line.
The moral of the story: Go to your privacy networking events, keep up on your pop culture — especially anything Taylor Swift related — and check out this week's digest news for everything else.
Have a good weekend.