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A recent Associated Press article described a passenger on a flight who lost his iPad. Luckily, he had enabled the “Find My iPad” app on the device. When he got home, he used his computer to log into Apple and have it pinpoint the current location of the device. It turned out the iPad was located at the home of a flight attendant from the plane. Although she claimed that she found the tablet and was going to give it to the airline lost and found, some of her personal information, including her husband’s birthday, was already on the device. Needless to say, local police and the airline are investigating.
This story highlights the benefits of turning on the device tracking app built into iPads and iPhones. However, is there a downside to being able to track your device’s movements? Last year, Apple faced a bit of controversy because it was revealed that the iPhone 4 was collecting detailed location information and storing the data directly on the device in such a way that app developers could access and upload it to their servers. An update to the iPhone operating system last May closed this privacy hole. While Apple claims that any location related information uploaded from a device is done anonymously, Find My iPad needs your personal information to work. Does this mean that Apple does track your specific location, and if so, is it possible for Apple to be required to turn this information over to appropriate parties in a litigation? There is a lot of discussion about this on various website, but it looks like jury is still out on this question. Susan Wortzman attended the 2012 Annual Competition Law Fall Conference last week (September 20 – 21) presented by The Canadian Bar Association. Susan was part of a panel called “Snowed Under: E-discovery and Document Production in Competition Cases”. As a first time attendee, Susan was impressed with both the conference turn-out, as well as the quality of the speakers and presentations. Susan was also fortunate to attend Melanie Aitken’s final speech as Commissioner of Competition. Now the Competition bar awaits the announcement of the Ms. Aitken’s replacement.
Susan was especially pleased to attend this conference as Wortzman Nickle has been involved in assisting several law firms and clients with their e-discovery adventures in responding to SIR requests from the Bureau. Please contact Susan Wortzman if you would like additional information with respect to the Wortzman Nickle SIR Response Team. Held on September 14th and 15th, and attended by our Susan Nickle, this conference covered the good, the bad, and the ugly about privacy and data security issues in the public and sectors, in both the provincial and federal jurisdictions.
Through a diverse (and international) lineup of speakers and topics, a common theme quickly emerged in virtually every session in the form of “what is personal information?”. Canadians are grappling with this issue in many contexts. At the Gala dinner on Friday night, Federal Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart noted that technology continues to change our notions of privacy and of personal information. She is firmly in favour of a “broader is better” definition of “personal information” to ensure we remain in step with other nations, which continue to expand their interpretations of the term. Her goal is for Canada to be a world leader in terms of access to information from public bodies, as well as in protection of the personal information of individual Canadians. Canadian courts (including the Supreme Court of Canada) are currently considering the current scope of “personal information”. We will watch with interest as decisions emerge. |
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