Tapping our wired lives: sovereignty doesn't just apply to nations. Taking a broader brush stroke, it also includes the privacy and identity of the individual, and both are under attack. (Personal).

The Social Insurance Number (SIN), which is supposed to be known only by its holder, employers, and the government, has become the standard unique identifier for all manner of transactions. Apply for a credit card, for example, and they want your SIN number; that's because your credit rating is stored by that number. So is a lot of other information that individuals might not feel comfortable having in the public domain.

Recently, it was revealed that there are five million more SIN numbers than there are Canadians, giving privacy experts the jitters about how closely guarded personal information is--not very, according to federal Auditor-General Sheila Fraser. In her 2002 Auditor-General's report, Ms. Fraser said that identity fraud is a growing concern. She criticized the federal government for not dealing with the issue of lax federal controls over social insurance numbers when it was raised in 1998. Stricter controls have now been established, and while that's not going to stop criminals from using phony SINs entirely, Ms. Fraser says at least the federal government is not contributing to the problem.

Now, some people are calling for Canadians to carry identity cards (landed immigrants are already required to do this), causing alarm bells to go off in the minds of civil libertarians. As Ian Hunter, a retired law professor at the University of Western Ontario in London puts it, identity cards have a "disturbing tendency to become a kind of internal passport system." He also points out that there's no proof that identity cards deter terrorism. He adds that identity cards can be forged, or stolen, just as other documents, such as passports, birth certificates, and driver's licences are. In November 2002, Revenue Minister Elinor Caplan rejected the idea of ID cards, saying they are inappropriate because of the potential threat to personal privacy they pose. She said that Canadians travelling to the U.S. and other countries can identify themselves perfectly well with their passports.

Our digital world has spawned a new industry, data mining, worth billions of dollars a year. It survives on digging up information about individuals that is stored in data banks everywhere. The electronic age has also made it increasingly simple for crooks to steal your identity and that can lead to an enormous mess of trouble, such as having strangers tap into your bank account.

In 1999, a writer for The Economist hired a private eye to see how easy it would be to collect personal information in Britain, a country that has a data-protection law that's supposed to make it hard to snoop on individuals. Starting out with only the correspondent's first and last name, the investigator was able to get a reasonable idea of the person's finances, house value and mortgage, salary, address, phone number, partner's name, a former partner's name, mother's name and address, and the names of three other people who had lived in the writer's house. He also knew the person's employer, names and addresses of previous colleagues, and neighbours' names. Putting it all together took less than seven hours over the course of a week, and the investigator had to leave his office only twice.

Despite the abundance of personal information that's easily obtained about us through our SIN numbers, credit cards, bank access cards, and driver's licences, privacy remains an issue of concern. Privacy advocates say we need more protection. Nevertheless, experts predicted in September 2001 that Canadian security services could eventually be able to tap into virtually any conversation or written communication, with the blessing of a fearful public.

Additional security would not be limited to personal identity cards, but could involve increased surveillance of e-mail and computer use, more search and seizure, and intelligence profiling of nationalities seen as potential terrorists.

Civil libertarians argue that security services already have plenty of power to use against terrorists. Toronto lawyer Clayton Ruby, for example, says the government "can bug your phone, read your e-mail, put tracers on your car, turn your telephone into a microphone, pick up conversations in your living room from a half-mile away, or record what you say to your wife in bed."

But, most Canadians remain unconcerned about their privacy. Less than a month after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., four out of five Canadians said they were willing to provide their fingerprints for a new permanent security card that would be carried at all times and shown to police on request. Fifty-nine percent of those polled said they would give police the extraordinary power to randomly stop and search either themselves or their vehicle. Fifty-three percent said lawenforcement officials should be allowed to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without specific charges. Fifty-eight percent said terrorism threats outweigh the protection of individual rights and freedoms and the due process of law. However, a majority said they didn't want police to tap their phones at will or to snoop through their mail and their credit-card bills without a warrant. Some find the willingness of Canadians to give up some of their civil rights unsettling. David Paciocco, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, is among them. "Once these powers are given to authorities, they cannot be controlled," he says. "The public tends not to understand the importance of civil liberties until they need them."

Why does privacy matter? In an article in The Wilson Quarterly (Autumn 2000) Jeffrey Rosen has a lot of interesting things to say on the subject of privacy. One of them is that: "Privacy protects us from being judged out of context in a world of short attention spans ... True knowledge of other people, in all their complexity, can be achieved with only a handful of intimate friends, lovers, or family members. To flourish, the intimate relationships on which true knowledge of others depends need time and private space--sanctuary from the gaze of the crowd, where mutual self-disclosure, measured and gradual, is possible."

According to Mr. Rosen, several surveys have suggested that electronically monitored workers experience higher levels of depression, tension, and anxiety, and lower levels of productivity, than people who are not monitored. And, he points out that studies have also shown that the creative process, which "takes place during periods of day-dreaming and seclusion, when individuals allow ideas and impressions to run freely through their minds," is inhibited by the presence of others.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Read George Orwell's book, 1984. Discuss how the author's vision compares with today's reality.

2. In November 2002, the United States created the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to combat terrorism. The department will eventually have 170,000 employees and a budget about one-third the size of that of the entire Canadian federal government ($65 billion a year, compared with $175 billion for the Canadian government). The department will touch both the lives of the 300,000 people who cross the Canada/U.S. border every day and the livelihoods of those who depend on access to the massive U.S. market. Do a report on Homeland Security activities and outline the specific ways in which they will affect Canadians.

FACT FILE

In September 2002, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a federal law that permitted police to raid law offices, saying that lawyer-client confidentiality is an indispensable pillar of a democratic system.

FACT FILE

Online databases can provide in seconds personal information that previously would have taken hours if not days to obtain.

FACT FILE

Online database can provide in seconds personal information that previously would have taken hours if not days to obtain.

FACT FILE

Britain, which scrapped ID cards after World War II, started thinking about reintroducing them after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. but rejected the idea because of public objections.

PUBLIC WORDS ON PRIVATE MATTERS

"The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected." From Anton Chekhov's book, The Lady with the Dog

"An epic civil-liberties battle is being waged in the courts of the United States. The issue is whether the `war on terrorism' will be fought by trampling freedoms or by defending them. So far, the tramplers are winning." Columnist Paul Knox, The Globe and Mail, November 2002

"... In fact, every stroke you make at your keyboard can be monitored (even if you have software that you think protects you). And the passwords to most password-protected files can be cracked." The Economist, December 1999

Websites

Electronic Frontier Canada--http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/efc.html

Privacy Commissioner of Canada--http://www.privcom.gc.ca

Privacy International--http://www.privacyinternational.org/

RELATED ARTICLE: New age crime.

A new device to steal information and tap into bank accounts has been in use at gas bars and convenience stores by a criminal network in Ontario. The scanner lifts confidential bank numbers from customers as a credit or debit card is swiped. Police discovered the scheme in October 2002 when 19 people were arrested after an investigation of the sophisticated scam.

Provincial police in Niagara, Peel, London, and Hamilton spent months uncovering the scheme, which involved using a fake card reader that looked just like the legitimate machines people use every day. Instead of sending the purchase information to the bank, the illegal device recorded all the information, including Personal Identification Numbers.

Gang members got jobs in convenience stores and gas bars that had one employee on duty at any given time. They installed the fake device, collected banking information, created phony debit cards, and then withdrew funds from the customer's bank account.

Those who were arrested had at least 20 phony cards each, and one had 100 cards. While they arrested one group, police admitted that they hadn't stopped the crime. They advised people to keep all receipts and frequently check with their financial institution to ensure all transactions have been registered.

RELATED ARTICLE: Big brother is watching.

It's probably not too surprising that the technology that has brought us the World Wide Web is also capable of invading our privacy. It's just not something that most of us have given much thought to. Until now. It's a little unsettling to learn that companies, governments, and anyone interested in searching can track anyone's Web trail, and locate a person while they're using their cell phone, for instance. This fills advertisers with glee because they can collect all sorts of valuable marketing information on individuals online. But, it's a hotly debated privacy issue for those being targeted. Increasingly, governments around the world are developing legislation to restrict the electronic collection of information.

In Europe, for example, there are strict limits on what information may be recorded and how, if at all, it may be used. Britain's 1998 Data Protection Act, which came into full effect in 2000, requires firms to provide notice and gain permission before they can make use of any personal data. At the same time, the European Union was working on similar policies.

In Canada, The Privacy Act has limited the federal government's ability to collect, use, and disclose information about Canadians since 1983. It also gives Canadians the right to see what information federal government institutions hold about them. There is also a Privacy Commissioner who has broad powers to initiate and investigate complaints. Most of the provinces have similar taws applying to their public sectors. There is a privacy code for the private sector as well. Completed in 1996, the code is part of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which came into effect in January 2001. The Act is similar to data protection laws around the world. It requires consent to collect or use personal information; it gives individuals the right to see any personal information an organization has and to correct any inaccuracies. Even with consent, organizations can only collect or use information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate under the circumstances.

The Act currently applies to industries under federal jurisdiction, including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, broadcasters, and transportation companies. Starting in January 2004, it will apply to all personal information collected, used, or disclosed in the course of commercial activities by all private-sector organizations.

In the U.S., a Pentagon system known as Total Information Awareness has been described as the most extensive surveillance program in history. While the system, which is expected to be in effect by 2004, aims to target terrorists, critics say it would invade citizens' privacy with its ability to find out just about anything about anyone. And, there's also some concern about the person in charge of the project: Rear-Admiral John Poindexter, who was involved in past intelligence cover-ups and violations of the U.S. Constitution.

RELATED ARTICLE: Keeping an eye on things, or not.

The battle to protect individual privacy seems an endless one, as governments seek to balance freedom and security. In June 2002, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, George Radwanski, launched a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to force the RCMP to turn off a video surveillance camera in downtown Kelowna, B.C. Mr. Radwanski argued that the surveillance violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. A report he commissioned on the subject by former Supreme Court judge Gerard La Forest agrees.

"In the absence of compelling justification, we should all be free to move about without fear of being systematically observed by agents of the state," Mr. La Forest wrote. "While it is not possible to predict with certainty how the courts will deal with this phenomenon, the Supreme Court has in the past shown that it is attuned to the danger of technologies posing a threat of potential massive invasions of privacy."

Meanwhile, in Britain, there is little opposition to video-surveillance systems as a crime-fighting measure. The city of Manchester inaugurated the country's most elaborate system in June 2002. A $6.9 million operation blankets the city centre with 400 cameras linked to a control room.