Privacy Information Links

General Papers/Overview Documents

U.S. Information Agency Overview of Public Access Laws
September, 1994

http://www.usia.gov/products/pubs/freedom/freedom6.htm

A useful overview of laws and regulations governing access to government information. The focus is on US laws, but there is also some discussion of Canadian Government regulations.

The Privacy Page

http://www.privacy.org

Sponsored by EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) this site is a useful "news" broker on information related to privacy on the Internet.

Noncommercial Privacy Organizations

Electronic Frontier Foundation

www.eff.org

EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization working in the public interest to protect fundamental civil liberties, including privacy and freedom of expression, in the arena of computers and the Internet. EFF was founded in 1990, and is based in San Francisco, California, with offices in Washington, DC, and New York City.

Electronic Privacy Information Centre

www.epic.org

EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. EPIC is a project of the Fund for Constitutional Government. EPIC works in association with Privacy International, an international human rights group based in London, UK and is also a member of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign, the Internet Free Expression Alliance, the Internet Privacy Coalition, and the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD).

Privacy International

http://www.privacyinternational.org/

Privacy International is a human rights group formed in 1990 as a watchdog on surveillance by governments and corporations. PI is based in London, UK and has an office in Washington, D.C. PI has conducted campaigns in Europe, Asia and North America to counter abuses of privacy by way of information technology such as telephone tapping, ID card systems, video surveillance, data matching, police information systems, and medical records.

Global Internet Liberty Campaign

http://www.gilc.org/

The Global Internet Liberty Campaign was formed at the annual meeting of the Internet Society in Montreal. Members of the coalition include the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Human Rights Watch, the Internet Society, Privacy International, the Association des Utilisateurs d'Internet, and other civil liberties and human rights organizations.

Internet Free Expression Alliance -- IFEA

http://www.ifea.net/

The name says it all -- the IFEA is a consortium of organizations such as the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, devoted to preserving the right of free speech on the Internet.

Internet Privacy Coalition

http://www.crypto.org/

The mission of the Internet Privacy Coalition is to promote privacy and security on the Internet through widespread public availability of strong encryption and the relaxation of export controls on cryptography.

Privacy Information Sites: Corporate Sponsored

Better Business Bureau Online

http://www.bbbonline.org/

Better Business Bureau site contains a lot of information on promoting trust and confidence on the Internet.

TRUSTe

https://www.truste.org

TRUSTe is an independent, corporate-sponsored, non-profit privacy initiative dedicated to building users' trust and confidence on the Internet and accelerating growth of the Internet industry. We've developed a third-party oversight "seal" program that alleviates users' concerns about online privacy, while meeting the specific business needs of each of our licensed Web sites.

Canada-specific Privacy Issues and Bill C-54

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada

http://www.privcom.gc.ca/

Canadian Privacy Commissioner -- description of policies and implementation.

Government of Canada Press Release: Bill C-54
8 October, 1998

http://e-com.ic.gc.ca/english/releases/41d7.html

Government announcement of Bill C-54, with description of intent of Bill, and basic components.

Industry Canada Task Force on E-Commerce: Privacy Issues

http://e-com.ic.gc.ca/english/privacy/632d1.html

General information pages outlining Federal government strategies for ensuring protection of personal information

Department of Justice of Canada, Privacy Act

http://canada.justice.gc.ca/FTP/EN/Laws/Chap/P/P-21.txt

The federal Privacy Act already covers personal information held by the federal public sector.

Bill C-54: Full Text

http://www.parl.gc.ca/36/1/parlbus/chambus/house/bills/government/C-54/C-54_1/C-54TOCE.html

The complete text of the proposed Bill C-54.

OECD Conference on Data Privacy
October 1998

http://www.ottawaoecdconference.org/

Ministerial conference on electronic commerce, including privacy issues. There is discusson here on the OECD policies for data privacy and its relationship to e-commerce.

ITAC (the Information Technology Association of Canada) Views on Privacy and C-54
Papers from March 1999

http://www.itac.ca/client/ITAC/ITAC_UW_MainEngine.nsf/cd0bbbe7b8237e1e85256482005b6998/b43027ea7664e4c8852566f00071ac31?OpenDocument

ITAC is the voice of Canada's dynamic and rapidly growing information technology industry. Together with its partner organizations, ITAC represents more than 1,300 firms engaged in every sector of the computing and telecommunications industry.

UofT Policy on Access to Information and Protection of Privacy

http://www.utoronto.ca/govcncl/pap/policies/access.html

A description of the privacy policies and programs implemented at the University of Toronto.

Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner

http://www.ipc.on.ca

This site has some useful articles that explain why a Web site should have a well-defined privacy policy

Uniform Electronic Evidence Act

http://www.law.ualberta.ca/alri/ulc/current/eeeact.htm

A product of the Uniform Law Conference of Canada; contains proposals for rules by which business records are accepted or rejected as evidence in court proceedings

United States-Specific Privacy Legislation

Online Privacy Protection Act of 1999
15 April 1999

http://www.senate.gov/~burns/privsbmt.htm

The full text of the proposed online privacy protection act. This has not yet been ratified into law.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998

Full Text: http://tap.epn.org/cme/titlexi.html
Overview (1): http://www.cme.org/basic_rights.html
Overview (2): http://tap.epn.org/cme/coppa.html

On October 21, 1998, Congress passed the historic Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. For the first time Congress recognized the need to regulate marketing to children online. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act authorizes the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to develop rules for regulating data collection on commercial Web sites targeted at children.

European Privacy Information Sites

I*M Europe - A European Commission Service

http://www.echo.lu/legal/en/dataprot/dataprot.html

A collection of resources on data protection and privacy protection laws.

Web Software related to Privacy Issues

Platform for Privacy Preferences: P3P

http://www.w3.org/P3P/

The World Wide Web consortium effort to develop a machine-readable language for communicating information about privacy preferences and privacy policies. This site has much information and links to commercial projects in this area. In particular, the URL http://www.w3.org/P3P/implementations lists a number of privacy related services. Some of these "infomediaries" which store information regarding individuals for access by other services.

Other Collections of Useful Links

EPIC List of Privacy Related Sites

http://www.epic.org/privacy/privacy_resources_faq.html

An excellent list of useful online and print resources. Also lists upcoming conferences and other events, in addition to software that can be used to enhance personal privacy.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Links

http://www.privcom.gc.ca/hotlinks.htm

Many Canada-specific links, including those to provincial authorities. Also includes links to many overseas privacy commisioner sites (Germany, France, New Zealand, others)

Ontario Privacy Commissioner Links

http://www.ipc.on.ca/web_site.eng/matters/m-page.htm

Many links, including to analysis documents that helped develop privacy policies for several commercial projects in Ontario