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The New York Times
January 19, 2014 Sunday
Late Edition - Final
Ann Cavoukian
By KATE MURPHY.
Kate Murphy is a journalist in Houston who writes frequently for The
New York Times.
Ann Cavoukian is the information and privacy commissioner in Ontario,
Canada, and a longtime advocate of default online confidentiality. Her
concept of ''privacy by design,'' which was developed in the 1990s and
encourages embedding privacy protections in information technology and
business practices, has recently gained renewed attention and
proclamations of support from regulatory agencies worldwide.
READING I've been delving into Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth
Cukier's new book, ''Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We
Live, Work and Think.'' It's about how with the enormous wealth of
data we have, we can bring great new insights. What I didn't like were
the comments about how we can't simultaneously protect privacy. That's
nonsense. It's all in the design of systems. Use the data by all
means, but aggregate it and de-identify it.
LISTENING I enjoy a variety of classical music. Beethoven is my
personal favorite but I also love Chopin and Erik Satie. And I love
Moby because I love to dance. I like to bop around the house but also
love folk dancing and ballet. I'm Armenian, that's my background, and
there are beautiful Armenian folk dances. The movement is so flowing
and free and gorgeous, so I am really attracted to that.
WATCHING I love ''Homeland,'' ''Person of Interest'' and ''Hostages.''
I find it fascinating, the shadow world, what we don't know. Maybe
it's my line of work and also because my two grandmothers survived the
Armenian genocide in 1915. On the inside of my grandmothers' forearms,
they had six-digit numbers that identified them in the camps. They
managed to escape. For them it was all about freedom. Privacy and
freedom go hand in hand. Historians will tell you the first thread to
unravel when a free and democratic society morphs into a totalitarian
state is privacy.
FOLLOWING The International Association of Privacy Professionals, or
I.A.P.P., has a daily dashboard of the top news stories that relate to
privacy, and the Privacy Forum Blog by Lauren Weinstein is fabulous.
Jules Polonetsky in Washington, D.C., runs the Future of Privacy
Forum, which is also something I look at.
PAINTING I love to paint and I'll tell you, I'm not bad. I use one of
my paintings for my annual Christmas card, and this year's card is a
painting based on a photograph I took in Rome.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/ann-cavoukian.html
January 19, 2014 Sunday
Late Edition - Final
Ann Cavoukian
By KATE MURPHY.
Kate Murphy is a journalist in Houston who writes frequently for The
New York Times.
Ann Cavoukian is the information and privacy commissioner in Ontario,
Canada, and a longtime advocate of default online confidentiality. Her
concept of ''privacy by design,'' which was developed in the 1990s and
encourages embedding privacy protections in information technology and
business practices, has recently gained renewed attention and
proclamations of support from regulatory agencies worldwide.
READING I've been delving into Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth
Cukier's new book, ''Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We
Live, Work and Think.'' It's about how with the enormous wealth of
data we have, we can bring great new insights. What I didn't like were
the comments about how we can't simultaneously protect privacy. That's
nonsense. It's all in the design of systems. Use the data by all
means, but aggregate it and de-identify it.
LISTENING I enjoy a variety of classical music. Beethoven is my
personal favorite but I also love Chopin and Erik Satie. And I love
Moby because I love to dance. I like to bop around the house but also
love folk dancing and ballet. I'm Armenian, that's my background, and
there are beautiful Armenian folk dances. The movement is so flowing
and free and gorgeous, so I am really attracted to that.
WATCHING I love ''Homeland,'' ''Person of Interest'' and ''Hostages.''
I find it fascinating, the shadow world, what we don't know. Maybe
it's my line of work and also because my two grandmothers survived the
Armenian genocide in 1915. On the inside of my grandmothers' forearms,
they had six-digit numbers that identified them in the camps. They
managed to escape. For them it was all about freedom. Privacy and
freedom go hand in hand. Historians will tell you the first thread to
unravel when a free and democratic society morphs into a totalitarian
state is privacy.
FOLLOWING The International Association of Privacy Professionals, or
I.A.P.P., has a daily dashboard of the top news stories that relate to
privacy, and the Privacy Forum Blog by Lauren Weinstein is fabulous.
Jules Polonetsky in Washington, D.C., runs the Future of Privacy
Forum, which is also something I look at.
PAINTING I love to paint and I'll tell you, I'm not bad. I use one of
my paintings for my annual Christmas card, and this year's card is a
painting based on a photograph I took in Rome.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/opinion/sunday/ann-cavoukian.html