TECH LAW – PRIVACY LAW & CYBERSECURITY MATTERS
There has been discussions of late about the possibility of individual’s in Canada being able to purchase a passport that contains proof you have been vaccinated for covid-19. There are many legal issues that arise with such a possibility.
The western economies are way ahead of the third world in getting vaccinations distributed to the wider population. The idea of creating a new passport that contains a special identification for vaccination will create a higher level of security for the rich and wealthy in the world. Is that something that we want to accomplish?
Further, the privacy implications are huge as well. Airline companies may put a lot of pressure on the government to implement such a passport so that airlines know ahead of time that passengers are safe from covid-19. It is going to create further division and different levels of classes of passengers going through airports.
The new BILL C-11 entitled Canada Privacy Protection Act will have to deal with the new idea of a special type of passport.
AI algorithms being used to source out criminals in police investigations. Various police agencies have turned to AI for assistance in identification of assailants. The problem is that the algorithms that have been created are not being well designed to take into account the unique facial features of non-whites such as blacks and asians. There have been known cases where the wrong person has been identified by AI and as a result the wrongly accused have hired lawyers to sue the police agency that perpetrated the wrong arrest. It is one thing to turn to technology and utilize algorithms in an attempt to enable law enforcements to expeditiously arrest the accused but it is a completely other story where technology is blatantly used to replace normal police investigations to arrest suspects.
AI should not and ought not to replace investigative techniques employed by police agencies for over hundreds of years. AI can be faulty. In order to improve upon it, one must ensure that a greater part of our community is properly identified in a fair and judicious manner. Otherwise, such AI implementation is going to create a whole new class of human rights violations which will end up costing the taxpayer millions of dollars in wrongfully accused litigation. Another question arises from where do they catalogue a person’s photo ID into evidence? It is one thing to have a database of past offenders but it is quite another to take photo ID of the average citizen who has never committed any criminal act and save that person’s ID into a large database housed by enforcement authority.
DAVID H. DAVIS,
Technology and Innovation lawyer: david@daviscyberlaw.com
