Law Commons^™

Legitimate Invasions: What Ontario Can Learn From The History Of The Consumer Reporting Act, Eliie Marshall

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

The growth of modern surveillance has attracted great public and scholarly interest. As Justice Abella recently noted in Douez v. Facebook, the Internet has transformed the potential harms flowing from an unjustified invasion of one’s personal information. Most analyses of the associated risks, however, imply that the techniques and motivations for surveillance are new. In fact, tactics for collecting and exchanging information about individuals to gain power over those individuals are well documented since time immemorial. From William the Conquerer’s Domesday Book to IBM’s first census tabulating machine, the advantage gained through data sharing has greatly benefited the state. The …