Key takeaways:
- In the newest annual report, the privacy commissioner condemns the shortage of enforcement authorities.
- Canada’s privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien is boosting the federal government to create several modifications to prepared legislation on private-sector data-handling methods.
- On Thursday, the commissioner issued the final annual report of his ruling.
Daniel Therrien warns the increasing risks of ‘surveillance capitalism:’
The federal privacy watchdog is cautioning Canadians about the increasing danger of “surveillance capitalism” — the usage of personal information by enormous companies. Source – cbc.ca
In his annual report tabled Thursday in Parliament, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien stated state surveillance — a significant worry after the 9/11 terrorist attacks — has been reined in partly in current years.
Personal data, meanwhile, has appeared as a favourably priceless asset and no one has leveraged it reasonably than the tech giants after web searches and social media accounts, he stated.
“Today, the privacy conversation is dominated by the growing power of tech giants like Facebook and Google, which seem to know more about us than we know about ourselves,” the report stated. Source – cbc.ca
“Terms like surveillance capitalism and the surveillance economy have become part of the dialogue.” Source – cbc.ca
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The office lacks sufficient enforcement power: Therrien
The dangers of surveillance capitalism were on complete display in the Cambridge Analytica disgrace, now the issue of proceedings in Federal Court because his office could not call Facebook to relent with its suggestions, Therrien stated.
The rule also did not permit the commissioner to impose financial fines to prevent this type of corporate behaviour.
Therrien, in his final year as privacy commissioner, is urging the federal government to create several modifications to prepared legislation on private-sector data-handling practices when it is reintroduced in the forthcoming weeks.
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