Law Times

March 16, 2009

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PAGE 6 COMMENT Law Times Group Publisher ....... Karen Lorimer Editorial Director ....... Gail J. Cohen Editor ........... Gretchen Drummie Associate Editor ......... Robert Todd Staff Writer ............. Glenn Kauth Copy Editor ............. Neal Adams CaseLaw Editor ...... Jennifer Wright Art Director .......... Alicia Adamson Production Co-ordinator . . Catherine Giles Electronic Production Specialist ............. Derek Welford Advertising Sales .... Kimberlee Pascoe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathy Liotta Sales Co-ordinator ......... Sandy Shutt No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written permission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. Information presented is compiled from sources believed to be accurate, however, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions. Law Times Inc. disclaims any warranty as to the accuracy, completeness or currency of the contents of this publication and disclaims all liability in respect of the results of any action taken or not taken in reliance upon information in this publication. ©Law Times Inc. 2009 All rights reserved. March 16, 2009 • Law TiMes Law Times Inc. 240 Edward Street, Aurora, ON • L4G 3S9 Tel: 905-841-6481 • Fax: 905-727-0017 www.lawtimesnews.com President: Stuart J. Morrison Law Times is published 40 times a year by Law Times Inc. 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9 • 905-841-6481. lawtimes@clbmedia.ca Publications Mail Agreement Number 40762529 • ISSN 0847-5083 $141.75 per year in Canada (GST incl., GST Reg. #R121351134) and US$266.25 for foreign addresses. Single copies are $3.55 Circulation inquiries, postal returns and address changes should include a copy of the mailing label(s) and should be sent to Law Times Inc. 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9. Return postage guaranteed. Contact Kristen Schulz-Lacey at: kschulz-lacey@clbmedia.ca or Tel: 905-713-4355 • Toll free: 1-888-743-3551 or Fax: 905-841-4357. CIRCULATIONS & SUBSCRIPTIONS Advertising inquiries and materials should be directed to Sales, Law Times, 240 Edward St., Aurora, Ont. L4G 3S9 or call Karen Lorimer at 905-713-4339 klorimer@clb- media.ca, Kimberlee Pascoe at 905-713-4342 kpascoe@clbmedia.ca, or Kathy Liotta at 905- 713- 4340 kliotta@clbmedia.ca or Sandy Shutt at 905-713-4337 sshutt@clbmedia.ca ADVERTISING Law Times is printed on newsprint containing 25-30 per cent post-consumer recycled materials. Please recycle this newspaper. Editorial Obiter Women . . . two worlds apart A hammed Sawadi was arrested when a member of the "religious police" a.k.a. the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, entered her home and found the men — Had- ian and Fahd, both 24 — inside. Fahd, a nephew of the woman's deceased hus- band, believed he had a right to be there because Sawadi breast-fed him as a baby and was thus a son to her in Islam. The other man was his business partner who had merely escorted him on the kind mission for his aunt. In news reports, it's conceded by a lawyer that the widow is months of imprisonment, and deporta- tion for having committed the apparent- ly unforgivable offence of "mingling." In short, her great crime was to invite into her home two young men who were simply delivering five loaves of bread, but were not related to her by blood. According to cnn.com, Khamisa Mo- 75-year-old Syrian widow has been sentenced by a Saudi Ara- bian court to 40 lashes, four not considered a "seductress" but the law doesn't account for the age of women ac- cused of the offence. Whipping as punishment to anyone That's 99 years and counting . . . 24 years before Sawadi's birth. The day was marked by Ontario's le- is barbaric, but 40 lashes to an elderly woman? It's vile stuff. In this case it could be a death sentence. Curiously, word of Sawadi's plight emerged in the media two days after In- ternational Women's Day was celebrat- ed, though we suspect it's probably not a national holiday in Saudi Arabia. In the news business, sometimes events that can be tied together by irony occur in clusters. For example, four days prior to IWD, the UN secretary general's database on violence against women was launched at UN Headquarters in New York. (Someone might want to slip them a note concerning Sawadi's case.) Countries around the globe recog- gal community with a forum at the Law Society of Upper Canada. A press release about the celebration noted that 19 years ago the late Supreme Court justice Ber- tha Wilson asked, "Will women judges really make a difference?" The forum of high-profile legal experts followed up on Wilson's question giving their views on "whether female judges have made a dif- ference in legal decision making, legal culture, and administering justice." According to the release the topic was nized IWD which was declared in 1910 by German socialist leader Clara Zetkin as a day of solidarity and a marking of the battle of women for equal rights. inspired by the "dramatic increase in the number of women in all areas of the legal profession in recent years, including the judiciary. There has been much debate, commentary, and academic writing about the influence of gender on judicial deci- sion making." It's interesting that we're still pondering the question . . . Meanwhile the legal fraternity lost a bright light in the women's leadership community with the passing of Stike- man Elliott LLP senior partner Alison Youngman — on IWD. Youngman focused many of her ef- forts on the advancement of women's interests and was named by the YWCA of Metropolitan Toronto as a Woman of Distinction. She also acted as president of the International Women's Forum of Canada, among other roles. "The way she got started was the way so many women got started — turning a nothing job into a launch pad because her curiosity and her great intellect and her zest stood out," her friend Rona Maynard told Law Times reporter Robert Todd. "I find it very fitting, and also very sad, that she died on International Women's Day, just as the light was breaking." — Gretchen Drummie Go to www.lawtimesnews.com for an audio version. use of social insurance num- bers is much more limited, in the U.S., an individual's Social Security number (SSN) is used extensively for both data match- ing and authentication purposes. Use of the SSN as an identifier –– to match individuals to infor- mation about them within an or- ganization and between organiza- tions –– is prevalent and, in many contexts, beneficial. There are no other available identifiers that are as reliable, cost-effective, and ac- curate for data matching as SSNs. ernment have been exploring means of reducing the exposure for consumers. The President's Identity Theft Task Force issued its strategic plan in April 2007. More recently, and in response, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report in December 2008 titled "Security in Num- bers –– SSNs and ID Theft." Unlike Canada, where the I dentity theft is a grow- ing problem and various branches of the U.S. gov- Identity theft –– recent U.S. developments Bits and Bytes By Alan Gahtan Many entities also use SSNs to authenticate consumers –– i.e., to verify that individuals are who they say they are. In effect, the SSN is treated as a secret piece of infor- mation that is available only to the consumer. However, these dual uses are not compatible. Identi- fiers are only effective when they are widely shared. Authenticators, on the other hand, are effective only when they are kept secret and therefore not widely known. SSNs do not function well for au- thentication purposes since they are commonly used as identifiers and therefore widely available. The FTC believes that a very important component to helping solve the identify theft problem is to reduce the value of SSNs to identity thieves by forcing busi- nesses to adopt more effective authentication procedures –– in other words, reduce reliance on the SSN as an authenticator. To date, many organizations may not have sufficient incentives to improve their authentication sys- tems because in many cases they are spared the full cost of iden- tity theft –– consumers often ab- sorb some of the damages. The report recommends that all pri- vate sector entities that maintain consumer accounts be required to establish appropriate, risk- based consumer authentication programs that could reduce the misuse of consumer data and the prevalence of identity theft. According to the FTC, an- other important measure would be to limit the supply and avail- ability of SSNs to wrongdoers –– in part by reducing the un- necessary display and trans- mission of SSNs by the private sector coupled with an improve- ment in data security. The FTC www.lawtimesnews.com recommends restricting the dis- play of SSNs on publicly avail- able documents and identifica- tion cards, and limiting the cir- cumstances and means by which they can be transmitted. Some states, such as California, have already enacted laws limiting the display and/or transmission of SSNs and many organizations have already discontinued using SSNs as employee or customer numbers or have stopped print- ing them on identification cards or mailings to customers. The FTC recommends the implementation of national data security standards. Current safeguard requirements apply to certain industries, certain types of data, and in certain states. For example, Safeguard Rules promulgated by the FTC and the federal banking agencies pursuant to the Gramm-Leach- Bliley Act require financial in- stitutions to establish reason- able procedures to protect con- sumers' personally identifiable financial information. How- ever, many entities and types of data are not currently subject to federal data security standards. Breach notification laws, al- ready applicable in a number of states, are seen as another area where broader application would be beneficial. To some extent, the costs of complying with such requirements have motivated some businesses to strengthen their safeguard practices. How- ever, there is currently no gener- ally applicable federal standard. The report recommends that Congress consider establishing a national data breach notification standard requiring private sector entities to provide public notice when an entity suffers a breach of consumers' personal informa- tion and the breach creates a sig- nificant risk of identity theft or other harms. LT Alan Gahtan is a Toronto-based technology lawyer. His web site is located at www.gahtan.com/alan.

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