Law Commons^™

Richard Susskind, Online Courts And The Future Of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), David Cowan

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

There are times when the essential nature of something is simply viewed as ‘nice to have’ until a paradigmatic shift turns the essential into a necessity, and necessity in technological change is not so much the mother of invention as the parent of behavioural change. This point is made clear by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced courts to put online and remote working at centre stage. There is a natural yearning to go back to ‘normal,’ but questions arise as to whether online courts are a good idea and whether attempts to work online and remotely will survive the …

Extended Collective Licensing As Rights Clearance Mechanism For Online Music Streaming Services In Canada, Lucie Guibault

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

According to the statistics compiled by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), online paid streaming is currently the fastest growing segment of the recorded music market, with a 33% global revenue increase in 2018. Subscription-based services offering legal online paid streaming of music have now reached all corners of the planet. Among the most well-known services are Apple Music, Amazon Prime, Deezer, Google Play, Soundcloud, and Spotify. The creation and continued functioning of such services are contingent on the capacity of the service exploiters to clear all copyrights in the offered music repertoire, for the territory of operation. …

Developing Privacy Best Practices For Direct-To-Public Legal Apps: Observations And Lessons Learned, Teresa Scassa, Amy Salyzyn, Jena Mcgill, Suzanne Bouclin

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Canada’s access to justice problem is undeniable. Too many people are unable to get the help they need when they experience legal issues. The reasons underlying this problem are multi-faceted and complex. One major barrier to effectively accessing justice is the cost of legal services; the fees associated with hiring a lawyer are often prohibitive. Increasingly, technology is advanced as a potential solution to the unaffordability of conventional legal services. Courts have tried to create efficiencies by, for example, allowing for e-filing and video- conferenced testimony, where appropriate. For lawyers, new technology products emerge almost daily to help streamline tasks …

Can Pipeda ‘Face’ The Challenge? An Analysis Of The Adequacy Of Canada’S Private Sector Privacy Legislation Against Facial Recognition Technology, Tunca Bolca

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Facial recognition technology is one of the most intrusive and privacy threatening technologies available today. The literature around this technology mainly focuses on its use by the public sector as a mass surveillance tool; however, the private sector uses of facial recognition technologies also raise significant privacy concerns. This paper aims to identify and examine the privacy implications of the private sector uses of facial recognition technologies and the adequacy of Canada’s federal private sector privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), in addressing these privacy concerns. Facial templates produced and recorded by these technologies are …

Searches Of The Person: A New Approach To Electronic Device Searches At Canadian Customs, Justin Doll

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

What goes through your mind at customs? As you wait in that folded line, edging closer to a row of enclosed booths manned by uniformed officers, surrounded by security cameras and warning signs? Perhaps you’re trying to act naturally, then wondering if it shows? Perhaps you’re mentally recalculating the amount you’ve scribbled onto your customs declaration? Or perhaps you’re exhausted from your flight, maybe nursing a bit of a hangover, not thinking about much at all? When you finally get to the front of the line, how do you expect your conversation with the customs officer to go?

According to …

A Better Act, More Bad Behaviour Online: Nova Scotia’S New Intimate Images And Cyber-Protection Act Goes To Court, Jennifer Taylor

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

There is now a reported decision under Nova Scotia’s new Intimate Images and Cyber-protection Act,1 which came into force in July 2018 after the previous legislation, the Cyber-safety Act,2 was struck down as unconstitutional.3

The case, Candelora v. Feser,4 was set against the backdrop of a bitter family law dispute. Dawna Candelora (the Applicant), alleged that her former spouse Trevor Feser and his new partner Sonia Dadas (the Respondents) were cyber- bullying her through an unrelenting stream of negative Facebook posts.

Justice Joshua Arnold of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia found that the Respondents had engaged in cyber-bullying and …

Case Comment: British Columbia (Attorney General) V. Brecknell, David T. Fraser

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

In a day and age where a large portion of both innocent and criminal communications travel across the border and then reside on servers outside of the country, many Canadian police and prosecutors were understandably excited by the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in Brecknell. This case concludes that a Canadian court can order an entity that is only ‘‘virtually present” to produce records pursuant to a Criminal Code production order.

While it is a case that deals with a compelling issue faced by Canadian law enforcement in an environment where hundreds of such orders are issued naming US …

Reflections On The Influence Of Social Media On Judging, Peter D. Lauwers Justice

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

This essay examines the influence of social media on judging. While the ethical implications of judges’ engagement in social media have received some scholarly attention, the actual influence of social media on judging has not.1 But it is possible to make some useful observations that might at once seem obvious and disquieting.

This essay is divided into four parts. Part 1 describes the normative judicial disposition. Part 2 examines the psychology of judging. Part 3 asks what could go wrong with the judicial use of social media. Part 4 describes a stance judges might take towards social media.

Book Review: The Long Journey To Software Valuation: Risks And Rewards Ahead By Dwight Olson, Duncan C. Card

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

One of the most difficult challenges for any technology start-up, and for its investors, is how to assess the commercial value of their innovative product or service solution. Much-needed guidance on that challenge has finally arrived. Dwight Olson’s The Long Journey To Software Valuation, released on March 1st of this year, provides tremendous assistance for both owners of those assets and all potential investors. In fact, the arrival of Mr. Olson’s book is a relief. As my law practice has been, and remains, devoted to aggressively commercializing technology (including software) for over 25 years, I personally know how welcome …

Politics Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In addition to their security properties, adversarial machine-learning attacks and defenses have political dimensions. They enable or foreclose certain options for both the subjects of the machine learning systems and for those who deploy them, creating risks for civil liberties and human rights. In this paper, we draw on insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, and human rights literature, to inform how defenses against adversarial attacks can be used to suppress dissent and limit attempts to investigate machine learning systems. To make this concrete, we use real-world examples of how attacks such as perturbation, model inversion, or membership inference …

Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: An Overview, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Technology facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is a complex worldwide phenomenon with devastating results. Research to date shows that victim-survivors of intimate partner violence are tracked by their abusive partners who use technology to monitor their movements and communication. Many women journalists, human rights defenders and politicians face daily death threats and rape threats for speaking out about equality issues or for simply being a woman in a leadership role. Those with intersecting marginalized identities are at specific risk, with Black, Indigenous, and people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities facing higher rates of attacks and concerted attacks that …

Ethical Testing In The Real World: Evaluating Physical Testing Of Adversarial Machine Learning, Kendra Albert, Maggie Delano, Jonathon Penney, Afsaneh Ragot, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This paper critically assesses the adequacy and representativeness of physical domain testing for various adversarial machine learning (ML) attacks against computer vision systems involving human subjects. Many papers that deploy such attacks characterize themselves as “real world.” Despite this framing, however, we found the physical or real-world testing conducted was minimal, provided few details about testing subjects and was often conducted as an afterthought or demonstration. Adversarial ML research without representative trials or testing is an ethical, scientific, and health/safety issue that can cause real harms. We introduce the problem and our methodology, and then critique the physical domain testing …