Law Times

PAGE 2 NEWS JUNE 16, 2008 / LAW TIMES Ottawa group launches Facebook complaint BY ROBERT TODD Law Times A n Ottawa group's privacy com- plaint regarding Facebook deals with legal issues that jurisdic- tions across the globe should be working to find common ground on, says a law- yer spearheading the grievance involving the social networking site. "I would say all of the social network- ing sites deserve to be assessed in the way we assessed Facebook," says Philippa Law- son, director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic. CIP- PIC, which is based at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law, recently filed to the privacy commissioner of Canada a 35- page complaint alleging 22 privacy viola- tions by Facebook. The complaint includes allegations that the company doesn't tell users how their personal information is given to third parties for advertising and other uses, and that users haven't given the company permission to disseminate their information in that manner. Facebook is an online tool that allows members with a valid e-mail address to create a personal profile web page that in- cludes notes, messages, and photographs of themselves to communicate with a group of "friends" they have given permis- sion to view their page. Lawson says there needs to be an inter- national review of all of the major social networking sites. The sites are governed in other parts of the world by laws similar to Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Docu- ments Act, says Lawson, and CIPPIC's Facebook complaint could serve as a jumping-off point for a global discussion on how to tailor laws for social networking sites, suggests Lawson. The complaint was together put by a group of University of Ottawa students who researched Facebook and filed the privacy complaint as part of a clinic course over the winter school term. Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has up to a year to investi- gate the complaint and submit her finding, but Lawson tells Law Times that the com- mission seems to have indicated that it will fast-track the complaint. A Facebook spokesperson tells Law 'I would say all of the social networking sites deserve to be assessed in the way we assessed Facebook,' says Philippa Lawson. the internet use our service. "We've reviewed the complaint and found it has serious factual errors — most notably its neglect of the fact that almost all Facebook data is willingly shared by users. The complaint also misinterprets [the Personal Information Protection and Elec- tronic Documents Act] in a manner that would effectively for- bid voluntary online sharing of informa- tion and ignores key elements of Face- book's privacy policy and architecture." Times the company hopes to "set the re- cord straight" and continues to inform users of the site's privacy controls, adding that the company has created a brochure and video with Ontario's Information and Privacy Commission. "At Facebook, we pride ourselves on the industry leading controls we offer users over their personal information," says the spokesperson in an e-mail. "We believe that this is an important reason that nearly 40 per cent of Canadians on CIPPIC was established in 2003 and is considered the first legal clinic dealing with issues of internet privacy. The clinic pairs upper-year graduate law students with staff lawyers who prepare reports and other findings to governments, ad- vise organizations, and provide public information on new technologies. Lawson says the complaint began in January, when four students began working on it for the winter term as part of a law school course. The group divided the work into sec- tions, researched Facebook's practices, and considered them in the context of Cana- dian privacy laws. "What really took most of the time was the factual investigation and making sure that we understood what Facebook was doing and had it factually correct . . . because Facebook is constantly changing its practices and its policies," says Lawson. She says students working on the complaint have learned a set of real-life legal skills that will translate well when they become working lawyers. "I think if you asked any of them, it was an excellent learning experience, and I think it just makes it all the more fun and exciting when, A, it's a real-life thing, and, B, it's something that you are using and that you may even depend upon," says Lawson, adding some of the students involved in the investigation are "hardcore" Facebook users. Law student Lisa Feinberg, who is going into her second year of law school and began working on the Facebook complaint in May as a CIPPIC summer student, says the experience honed her re- searching skills. "It allowed me to fuse together legal principles with this broad research," says Feinberg, who is a Facebook user. Lawson urges current users to educate themselves by reading the different settings and making sure they have the privacy preferences they desire: "Find out what Facebook is doing and make sure you're comfortable with that. "We're not saying stop using Facebook, although I think people should think very carefully every time they're about to post something, 'Do I want a potential employer to see this?'" LT Measures restrictive Continued from page 1 In those cases, where the SIRC was responding to com- plaints about activities of the Canadian Security and Intelli- gence Service, Cameron had ac- cess to all sensitive information and evidence in the case and also had access to the complainants. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin used the SIRC sys- tem as an example in the unani- mous judgment she wrote for the security-certificate case. She also cited the existing special advocate system in place in the United Kingdom for security cases, and noted past criticism that advocates there are not al- lowed to take instructions from appellants or their counsel. In an interview, Cameron stresses the risk of allowing advocates without experience in intelligence cases access to sensitive information while at the same time allowing them to communicate with those named for deportation under the security certificates. "The advocate might not FREE UNTIL JUNE 30TH www.lawtimesnews.com know what is safe; that's a real risk," he tells Law Times. Toronto lawyer Paul Cope- land, another of the special ad- vocates who has been assigned to two of the cases, agrees the new measures are unduly restrictive. He tells Law Times he in- tends to ask for every bit of government information he believes is necessary. "If there's an informant, I'll want to see every report the in- formant ever produced," he says. Comparing access to govern- ment information in the deporta- tion cases to the requirement for disclosure in criminal trials, Co- peland says as long as the act does not specifically prevent access to the evidence, judges will be free to disclose it. "If the legislation is silent about it, we'll develop some rules as we go along," he says. The lack of access by those named in the security certifi- cates to the evidence and alle- gations against them, combined with restricted access even on the part of the judge, was at the centre of McLachlin's ruling that the law violated s. 7. "The fairness of the IRPA procedure rests entirely on the shoulders of the designated judge," she wrote. "Those shoulders cannot by themselves bear the heavy burden of as- suring, in fact and appearance, that the decision on the reason- ableness of the certificate is im- partial, is based on a full view of the facts and law, and reflects the named person's knowledge of the case to be met." Liberal Senator George Baker, a member of the anti- terrorism committee, says there is little question the Supreme Court was suggesting the secu- rity-cleared advocates should have access to all government evidence, as well as access to those named in the security cer- tificates and their counsel. "The system cannot work as ordered by the Supreme Court of Canada," Baker tells Law Times, adding the committee will likely recommend amend- ments when it reports to the government in December. LT

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