Legal Commentary

Orchestra London Painted Violins fundraiser

Posted on March 30, 2011
The Free Press has a good article this morning covering the entire front page of the Today section talking about this fundraiser, and showing the violins that are being auctioned and raffled off. The text of the article is here.   Images of the violins and more detail about the event are on the Orchestra London web [...

Common branding / trade-mark mistakes

Posted on March 30, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. It can be frustrating when a client comes for trade-mark advice, but has already started down a less than optimal path with their branding from a trade-mark perspective. If they have already used the brand and built up some goodwill, or have [...

Two noteworthy Ontario privacy decisions

Posted on March 25, 2011
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice just released a decision saying that there is no free-standing tort of invasion of privacy in Ontario.  For more detail see the Jones v Tsige decision (pdf), and commentary by David Fraser and All About Information...

Anti-spam bill far reaching: The Act applies to all software installed on someone’s computer

Posted on March 21, 2011
For the London Free Press.  March 21, 2011 Read this on Canoe The anti-spam bill — Bill C-28 — was passed in December and is expected to be in force later this year. The main goal of the Act is the prevention of spam, but it also contains anti-spyware provisions...

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Privacy Commissioner wants feedback on biometrics

Posted on March 16, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: The Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s most recent newsletter refers to a document entitled “Data at Your Fingertips: Biometrics and the Challenges to Privacy“. I believe that biometrics will ultimately be the right solution for authentication and identification, and will help reduce the use [...

Orchestra London Painted Violins

Posted on March 15, 2011
Check out this Orchestra London event / fundraiser. (Disclosure:  I’m on the Orchestra London board)

Happy Pi day

Posted on March 14, 2011
Today is March 3, or 3.14, and thus Pi Day. Here is a Wikipedia entry on the topic, the Pi day website, and a page from the Exploratorium website where the day was founded.

ipad2 or Motorola Xoom?

Posted on March 09, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: I’m wondering what readers think about ipad2 vs Android tablet. Lets assume for the sake of argument that one wants a tablet now, rather than waiting for another year to see how the market shakes out...

Anti-spam move totes defences: Unfortunately it’s so broadly defined it will affect how many organizations conduct business

Posted on March 07, 2011
For the London Free Press – March 7, 2011 Read this on Canoe The anti-spam bill — Bill C-28 — was recently passed, and will be in force this year. It gives new tools to fight spam, but unfortunately defines spam so broadly that it will affect how most organizations conduct business...

Apple iPad 2 just announced

Posted on March 02, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: Apple just held its press conference. Details about the iPad 2 will be found in the tech press. Engadget.com, wired.com/gadgetlab, and cnet.com are good ones to look at. Even the CBAPracticelink has an article about it...

Tracking online users

Posted on March 01, 2011
David Fraser has a good post on his Canadian Privacy Law Blog called Tracking Internet miscreants that talks about the process of tracking down anonymous people for litigation purposes.  David includes a slide deck from a presentation he gave at a Canadian Bar Association meeting that talks about the legal process to do that...

Tired of Winter? – Take in a concert

Posted on February 24, 2011
Far too often we tend to think – like the saying that an expert is anyone from out of town – that the best musicians and artists are from out of town.  To disprove that, I encourage you to go to a concert by Orchestra London, and/or the Amabile choirs...

Safeguarding client information

Posted on February 23, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  While the webinar was based on lawyer and client information, the principles apply to almost anyone.  It reads as follows: I attended a webinar today by the CBA entitled Safeguarding your Client?s Confidential Information ? Tips and Traps...

Tablets cut printing costs

Posted on February 16, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Several of us here at Slaw comment from time to time on tablets, and the paperless office - but usually not together. All Things Digital has a post entitled Use a Tablet, Save a Tree that talks about a Morgan Stanley prediction [...

Federal court finds credit bureau at fault

Posted on February 14, 2011
For the London Free Press – February 14, 2011 Read this on Canoe PIPEDA: Law requires a high degree of accuracy when collecting personal information The recent Federal Court of Canada decision in Nammo v. Transunion marks the first time damages have been awarded under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act...

Tablet wars – which one to buy?

Posted on February 10, 2011
The HP WebOS tablet announcement yesterday adds another tablet option.  It won’t be available until this summer, though.  And the iPad 2 announcement is eminent.  Confused about the best option?  Seems that there are as many opinions as there are people writing about it...

Don’t confuse the action with the tool

Posted on February 09, 2011
That’s my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. Governments, courts, school boards, and people in general too often focus on the wrong aspects of new things.  Whenever a new tool arrives – such as various forms of social media or smart phones – two seemingly opposite things happen...

Give the gift of live music for Valentine’s day

Posted on February 07, 2011
I normally post my Free Press articles on Monday- but because of the Free Press re-org of Biz Monday, all the columns are now bi-weekly.  So today I’m going to promote some upcoming London events. My son is in a quartet called The Starting Pitchers that is offering singing valentines on the 13th and 14th...

Why metered bandwidth is a bad idea

Posted on February 02, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. There has been a firestorm of protest recently over the issue of usage based billing for internet access.  It is widely recognized that the future of Canada is digital.  This concept has broad government and community support...

New Biz Monday format for London Free Press

Posted on January 31, 2011
The Free Press has revamped Biz Monday.  Welcome to new columnists Gerry Macartney who will write about business and politics, and Andrea Halwa who will write about business and the arts.   Columns will now run bi-weekly instead of weekly, including my column, and Allison Graham’s column...

Happy Data Privacy Day

Posted on January 28, 2011
From the Data Privacy Day web site: Data Privacy Day is an international celebration of the dignity of the individual expressed through personal information.  In this networked world, in which we are thoroughly digitized, with our identities, locations, actions, purchases, associations, movements, and histories stored as so many bits and bytes, we have to ask ? who [...

More on the Anti-Spam Act

Posted on January 26, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. I just finished listening to another IT-Can teleconference on the anti-spam act, this one presented by Barry Sookman and Lorne Salzman of McCarthy Tetrault.  For those wanting more detail, slides will be posted soon on the IT-Can website, the McCarthy Tetrault website, [...

E-mail access denial challenged by IPC

Posted on January 24, 2011
For the London Free Press – January 24, 2011 Read this on Canoe When a government employee uses his or her workplace e-mail address to send and receive personal e-mails unrelated to their work, are those e-mails subject to disclosure to members of the public who request them under freedom of information legislation? Despite that [...

Bill c-52 Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications

Posted on January 21, 2011
David Fraser has a post worth reading entitled Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act bill one step closer to (warrantless) surveillance state. The bill has been called “lawful access” , or “awful access” depending on your perspective...

CRTC role in the new anti-spam act

Posted on January 19, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows. I just listened to a teleseminar by the Canadian IT-Law Association on the Anti-spam act, primarily discussing the CRTC?s role.  Here are a few points that were raised. The act is expected to come into force in September...

Our digital universe keeps expanding

Posted on January 17, 2011
For the London Free Press – Jan 17, 2011 Read this on Canoe The sheer volume of digital information that we create is fast outstripping our ability to manage it all, report warns The sheer volume of digital information continues to rapidly increase...

Privacy Zuckering

Posted on January 17, 2011
Privacy Zuckering v.   Creating intentionally confusing privacy policies ?à la Mark Zuckerberg?to sucker users of social networking sites like Facebook into exposing valuable personal information. From Wired magazine  Jargon Watch

Privacy dangers of smartphones

Posted on January 14, 2011
David Fraser has a post entitled Your smartphone could be your most dangerus possession, so secure it.  David states, in part After a decision out of California which found that police are able to rummage through all your portable electronics incident to arrest, much attention has been focused on how much data people carry around [...

Anti-spam Act – bill C-28 – how it might affect you

Posted on January 12, 2011
That’s the title of my Slaw post for today.  It reads as follows: The anti-spam bill ? Bill C-28 ? was recently passed, and is expected to be in force sometime later this year. If you think it won?t affect you because you don?t send mass emails trying to sell random products, and don?t infest [...

Changes stretch from devices to laws

Posted on January 10, 2011
For the London Free Press – January 10, 2011 Read this on Canoe The year 2010 was a significant one for technological innovation. We saw the continued advancement of the smart phone, the rise of the touch screen tablet in the guise of the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the introduction of electric cars [...

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