Announcement: Privacy and Anonymity Conference in Ottawa - March 2005

This just in....

The Concealed I: Anonymity, Identity and the Prospect of Privacy www.anonequity.org/concealedI

March 4-5, 2005 University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law Ottawa, Canada

* Do we have a right to speak anonymously? * Why do people claim to value privacy but act otherwise? * What are the constitutional implications of the compelled disclosure of identity? *What is the effect of imposing anonymity on women who enter the legal system as a result of sexual assault or other crimes of gendered violence? * Do we have the right to resist excessive surveillance?

These are some of the questions being investigated by a multidisciplinary team of researchers on a project entitled On the Identity Trail (www.anonequity.org). The team, along with faculty members from the Law and Technology Program at the University of Ottawa (www.commonlaw.uottawa.ca/tech), invites you to a two-day conference dedicated to investigating these and other privacy issues in our increasingly networked society.

Panel discussion topics include: * THE NATURE AND VALUE OF PRIVACY AND ANONYMITY * PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS OF PRIVACY * POLICY ISSUES FOR PRIVACY COMMISSIONERS * DEBATE ON THE COMPELLED DISCLOSURE OF IDENTITY * INVASIVE SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGIES * COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES * PUBLIC SAFETY IN FREE AND DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY * PRIVACY ACTIVISM

The conference will begin on Day I with an introductory session investigating the nature and value of privacy and anonymity in an era of ubiquitous identification technologies. This will be followed by an investigation from a social science perspective on public perceptions of privacy and data flows. These two panels lay the ground for a very special policy lunch, hosted by Canada's federal and provincial privacy commissioners. In an unprecedented collaboration, the various participating privacy commissioners will present a cross-Canada "policy-scan", setting out the most pressing issues encountered by their offices and offering a range of viewpoints in response. The remainder of the afternoon on Day I will include a debate on compelling the disclosure of identity and a session on invasive identification and surveillance technologies.

Day II of the conference will begin with law and policy issues and will end with an investigation of some broader social dimensions of anonymity and identity. The day starts with a session investigating some of the crucial comparative constitutional questions, and is followed by a session that focuses more specifically on issues of race and gender. These sessions will be followed by another policy lunch featuring representatives of the law enforcement and security community debating the need for identification from the perspective of "public safety" in a free and democratic society. The remainder of the afternoon of Day II will focus on the broader public, including a session on social activism and the appropriateness of certain public responses to oppressive surveillance. We end the conference with a walking tour of the surveillance cameras in the Ottawa area and an artistic performance.

Invited Speakers:

Ken Anderson Assistant Commissioner (Privacy) Ofiice of the Information Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

Jacquelyn Burkell Professor, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, University of Western Ontario

Colin Bennett Professor, Political Science University of Victoria

Bill Brown New York Surveillance Camera Players

Paul De Hert Professor, Faculty of Law, Leiden University & Free University Brussels

Jane Doe Teacher, Lecturer and Arts and Culture Worker, Toronto

A. Michael Froomkin Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Miami

Oscar Gandy Professor, Annenberg School For Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Daphne Gilbert Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Declan McCullagh CNET

Ian Kerr Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology, University of Ottawa

David Lyon Professor, Department of Sociology, Queen's University

Rafael Macedo Attorney General, Mexico

Steve Mann Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto

Helen Nissenbaum Professor of Culture & Communication, Computer Science and Sr. Fellow in Law, NYU

G.T Marx Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, M.I.T

Stephanie Perrin Research Coordinator, On the Identity Trail Privacy Consultant and Advocate, Montreal, Canada

Jennifer Stoddart Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Marc Rotenberg Executive Director, Electronic Privacy Information Center; Adjunct Professor Georgetown Law

Alan Westin Professor Emeritus, Columbia University President, Privacy and American Business

Stay tuned for further announcements. For more information, visit: www.anonequity.org/concealedI or email: anonplan@uottawa.ca