posted on Feb. 21: Canada’s Privacy Commissioner delivers speech to communication studies students

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Radwanski.George.jpg” caption=”George Radwanski”]Students in Communication Studies 1B03, History of Communication, had ringside seats recently to Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski's speech entitled Watching You: Privacy Rights and Video Surveillance.

Radwanski believes that the Hamilton police department's proposal to install six video surveillance cameras in the downtown area represents “the thin edge of the wedge that will irrevocably change our whole notion of our rights and freedoms.”

Lecturer Laurence Mussio said the subject of the commissioner's speech strikes at the very heart of the mission of the communication studies program.

“The issues raised point in dramatic fashion to the need to generate a sophisticated understanding of how communication technology
shapes our societies. How technology, public safety, and our constitutional rights to privacy all interact are matters of the most
urgent kind.”

The privacy commissioner outlined four specific criteria that he believed should be met when considering any measure that might limit or infringe privacy.

“First, it has to be demonstrably necessary to address a specific problem. Second, it must be demonstrably likely to be effective in addressing that problem. Third, it must be proportional to the security benefit to be derived. In other words, you don't use a sledgehammer to kill a fly. And, finally it must be demonstrable that no less privacy invasive measure would suffice to achieve the same result.”

Radwanski's 35 minute presentation argued that these tests must be applied to any proposal to install surveillance cameras in Hamilton and cited the experience of various U.S. and European cities that found video surveillance systems made no difference in their crime rates.

“London has roughly 150,000 video surveillance cameras. Last year, it had more cameras than ever before. And guess what? Last year, street crime in London increased by 40 per cent.”

Radwanski concluded his speech by challenging the students to, “Be an example of strength, not timidity. Base your decisions on facts, not on scaremongering. Build a genuinely safe free society, not a falsely safe police state.”

Mussio was pleased that his students had the opportunity to hear firshand the views of the privacy commissioner and noted that, “the commissioner's address offered my students an excellent opportunity to engage their rapidly developing historical understanding of communications with a serious contemporary public policy issue. In an era of accelerating innovation in communications, I am convinced that these skills are more critical than ever to the vitality of civil society.”