Skip to main content

Privacy & Surveillance

Pervasive public and private surveillance made possible by new technologies challenges long-standing social norms of privacy and individual rights and civil liberties. Those using the technologies gain enormous power to make our everyday lives transparent to themselves while rendering their own practices increasingly invisible to those whose data they are appropriating. At the same time, the public has become increasingly reliant on the new information and communication tools for social participation, thereby increasing their transparency and dependency.

Page October 27, 2018

Towards a more equitable Sidewalk Toronto

By Milan Gokhale October 27, 2018 - The city of Toronto is one year into the private sector experiment known as Sidewalk Toronto, a joint partnership between Waterfront Toronto — the economic development agency equally funded by governments in Toronto, Ontario and Canada — and Sidewalk Labs — the private company funded by Google. This real estate-tech partnership, which was announced a year ago as a tech-first neighbourhood in Toronto, has been a nightmare of conflated interests, conflicting priorities and confusing rhetoric.
News November 14, 2016

CFE Releases Report: Chilling Free Expression in Canada – Canadian Journalists’ and Writers’ Views on Mass Surveillance

A survey conducted by the Centre for Free Expression, in collaboration with the Canadian Association of Journalists and PEN Canada, finds writers and journalists have serious concerns about mass surveillance, resulting in some now self-censoring their own activities. Chilling Free Expression in Canada reports the results of a survey of 129 Canadian writers and journalists between May 27 and June 20, 2016.