Alessandro Acquisti: Why Privacy Matters

Assignment Schedule

The important dates for winter 2014 can be found in the syllabus, online here .

Date	Lecture Topic	Assignments
January 22	Introduction
January 29	Privacy Law
February 5	Data Protection	Assignment: Memo
February 12	Writing and Research	Assignment: Citation Usage Assignment: Mind Map Due: Memo
February 17	Reading Wk
February 26	Privacy and Health	Due: Citation Usage Due: Mind Map Due: Essay proposal
March 5	Privacy and Technology	Essay feedback returned.
March 12	International Perspectives	Due: Essay bibliography Assignment: Abstract
March 19	Cultural and Group Privacy	Assignment: Critique Due: Abstract
March 26	Critical Perspectives	Due: Critique Blog marking deadline
April 2	Exams and Writing
April 9	Exams and Writing
April 15	Exams and Writing	Due: Essay

Stanford Law Review Issue on Big Data and Privacy

Please check out the September 2013 special issue of the SLR, on the topic of privacy and big data. This is a great way to find ideas for your final projects.

Essay Topic Suggestions

Instructors

There are two instructors for this course. The primary classroom instructor for 2013-2014 is Professor Power. Both instructors will be involved in administration, grading and creating course material.

Biographies:

Michael Power, BA, LLB, MBA.

Michael Power is one of Canada¹s leading authorities on privacy and data protection law. A graduate of Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Law,  Michael has extensive experience as a lawyer, advising clients in both the public and private sectors on privacy, corporate, governance, and technology-related issues. After nearly a decade with the federal Foreign Affairs and Justice Departments, he went on to be a partner at Gowling, LaFleur Henderson, and later, Vice President of Privacy and Security at eHealth Ontario. 

In addition to being a sought-after speaker and panelist, he writes and blogs extensively on privacy and information security issues. He is the author of the Access to Information and Privacy Title of Halsbury's Laws of Canada and co-author of Sailing in Dangerous Waters: A Director’s Guide to Data Governance. His latest book, The Law of Privacy, was published in June 2013.

James Williams, BA, BSc, JD, MSc, PhD (cand).

James Williams is a senior software engineer at Google’s Mountain View campus, where he works on distributed computing, privacy engineering and legal informatics. A graduate of the University of Victoria’s Faculty of Law, he has extensive experience with information security and privacy. In addition to his standing as a doctoral candidate in computer science at the University of Toronto, he has published numerous peer-reviewed research papers,  including articles on health information systems, software engineering, health law and privacy. His current research interests include algorithms, machine learning, simulation and scientific computing.

At the time of writing, he is collaborating with project teams at the Stanford Design School and Stanford Law School on legal information systems, working with civil engineering researchers on large-scale system simulation, and designing a new law course for Osgoode. Additional research projects include papers on financial regulation, resilience engineering and complex adaptive systems science. He is a member of the MIT Big Data  Privacy working group.

Contact Information:

The instructors can be contacted via email at the following addresses:

Textbook

The textbook for the course is "The Law of Privacy", published by LexisNexis. This was just published in June, 2013, and it is both comprehensive and up to date.

We have secured a generous student discount, courtesy of the publisher. Please do NOT buy the book from the website. We will order copies through the campus bookstore once enrollment numbers are available in December.

Official Course Syllabus / Outline

Course Summary

Comparative Law: Privacy & Data Protection

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Number and Format: (3040X.03) Seminar

Instructors: M. Power & J. Williams; Adjunct Professors

Winter: 3 credits; 3 hours; max. enrollment: 5 (upper year) 20 (total)

Prerequisite Courses: None

Preferred Courses: None

Upper Year Research & Writing Requirement: No

Praxicum: No

Presentation: Discussion and lectures led by the instructors. The seminar will be taught over 9 classes in  an eleven-week period, beginning January 22, 2014. Each session will be 3 hours.

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Description: The subject of privacy in today’s society raises questions in a number of inter-related disciplines, including law, information security, philosophy, sociology, engineering, health care and political science. This seminar introduces and explores the subject of privacy as well as data protection governance and  management.

Classes are organized around discussions of current issues in privacy law and policy, based on short lectures concerning Canadian and international privacy and data protection law as well as student reading and writing assignments. 

Although it covers the key conceptual foundations of privacy as found in the western legal tradition, a number of sessions will be spent examining the subject from critical perspectives, including aboriginal, reductionist and feminist views on privacy and data protection. 

Students' participation is required and actively encouraged.

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Evaluation: 50% for a paper and 30% for writing exercises based on topics covered in or related to the course; 20% for attendance and participation.