privacy
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Remain Nameless
I wrote in the past, here and here, about the serious problems that can result from people’s involvement in lawsuits, and details of their private lives and quarrels being exposed for all to see in court decisions available on the internet. But bad as it is if your name being associated with a lawsuit prevents you Continue reading
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The Future is Even Creepier
There is an interesting story in today’s New York Times that brings together a couple of my recent topics, the tracking of internet users by the websites they visit and the use of the data thus generated in advertising, about which I wrote here, and the use of target-specific outreach and advertising by President Obama’s Continue reading
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The Future Is Creepy
I had the chance today to be at a talk by two of the members of the legal “brain-trust” of President Obama’s re-election campaign, NYU’s professors Rick Pildes and Sam Issacharoff. (I have to brag: it was one of those moments that make NYU the best law school in the world.) Yet although they spoke Continue reading
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A Question for the SCC
I wrote on Friday, in a post about A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, the Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing a victim of cyber-bullying to bring her defamation suit against the person responsible for it anonymously, that “the interesting question” about the decision is how far does its principle extend: In other words, is Continue reading
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There’s Nothing in That Name
This morning, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that is a further small step in the debate about the right of litigants to privacy and the right of the public to know what goes on in our courtrooms. I blogged about these issues here and here. The applicant in the case, A.B. v. Bragg Communications Inc., 2012 SCC 46, is Continue reading
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What’s in a Name?
The CBC has a story about criticisms of Ontario’s rules which allow the publication of the parties’ names in family law court decisions. The availability of these decisions online, especially on CanLII, makes them widely accessible―and people are concerned about others learning the details of their divorces, their personal information, or even seeing allegations made Continue reading
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The Only Thing Worse Than Being Talked About
Is being talked about in a court decision that’s available online for all to see. At least if you’ve sued a former employer, and are looking for a new job. At the Volokh Conspiracy, Eugene Volokh reports on a case in which a man who believes he lost employment opportunities because prospective employers found out Continue reading
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Emergency Wiretaps and Privacy Rights
Well, the Supreme Court of Canada has great timing. Or maybe I do, but saying that would be immodest, right? In any case, the day after I wrote that the Court latest privacy decision was a mess, it has released its decision in R. v. Tse, 2012 SCC 16, addressing the conflict bewteen the right to privacy Continue reading
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Privacy in the Past, Present, and Future
Our own actions – individual and collective – set the upper limit of our privacy rights. We will never have more privacy rights than we care to have, although we often have fewer. One stark illustration of this idea comes in Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Dead Past,” in which a group of scientists build Continue reading
Double Aspect 