鈥淚t鈥檚 not the technology that鈥檚 bad,鈥� said Toronto-based lawyer and consultant Michael Power. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the people that use it.鈥�
Mr. Power was referring specifically to issues of doctor-patient confidentiality in medical health records, the subject of his keynote speech at Dalhousie鈥檚 fifth-annual Data Privacy Day. But he could well have been speaking generally about the overall themes of the afternoon-long conference on 鈥淒igital Lives in a Networked World,鈥� which took place on Wednesday, Jan. 25.
Like many of the talks, Mr. Power鈥檚 presentation鈥斺�渆Health&聽 Privacy: Issues and Implications for Society鈥濃�攍ooked broadly at the implications of hosting daily transactions and interactions online. Though convenient, moving medical records online impacts a number of areas that Mr. Power discussed, including the protection of patient information, concerns involving patient/doctor confidentiality and other issues.
Hacker targets
Peter Morin, who lead鈥檚 Bell Aliant鈥檚 corporate security team, spoke about modern cyber attacks, which often focus on fortune 500 companies, governments, and other high-value targets. These attacks not only have a financial impact on the companies breached, but can leak financial and contact information, credit card numbers, contact lists and numerous other sources of valuable information.
Mr. Morin broke down how attackers go about obtaining this information, how they hack into networks, and how they fool innocent people into giving them access to these networks. He stressed the importance of protecting data instead of protecting the device itself, as the primary cause of identity theft is usually data breach 鈥� not a hardware issue.
鈥淗ospitality and retail are the two most common targets of hackers because of the amount of information available and the little amount of protection surrounding it.鈥� said Mr. Morin.
In order to better protect your data from hackers, Mr. Morin recommended a few measures including encryption, monitoring the data that is leaving your network, taking care of your web apps and, where possible, blocking international access to your data to further restrict malicious individuals from getting into your system (geo-blocking).
1984 in 2012
For John Bullock鈥檚 presentation, the 黑料吃瓜网information security manager appealed to literature with 鈥�1984 at Twenty-Eight: The State of Surveillance.鈥� He drew on comparisons between the George Orwell novel and the way the world today is close to what Orwell imagined when the book was published in 1948. Although not quite as extreme as Orwell鈥檚 world, the state of surveillance in 2012 is eerily similar.
鈥淎rt imitates life and life imitates art,鈥� said Mr. Bullock, when asked about how he related 1984 to today鈥檚 society. 鈥淲e should pay attention to both in order to give us a better understanding of what could happen.鈥�
While speaking with Mr. Bullock, I also asked how our surveillance state, should we ever wind up in a complete one, would differ from that in the novel. He said that given the technologies that Orwell was imagining (large-scale surveillance), he would not have been able to predict the 鈥渓ittle brothers鈥� to his Big Brother. Mr. Bullock said the 鈥渓ittle brothers鈥� were things like commercial cameras, ATM cameras, traffic cameras, Google Street View, and more.
Considering your digital footprint
The day concluded with presentations from RCMP Sergeant Tom Murdock on avoiding identity theft, and Ryan McNutt from 黑料吃瓜网Communications and Marketing, who looked at maintaining personal privacy in social media in his presentation 鈥淐heck Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself: A Digital Footprint Checklist.鈥�
When it comes to posting things on the web that people might find Mr. McNutt says, 鈥淭hink about what you鈥檙e posting as if your insurance company is reading it.鈥�
This led me to ask students what they thought about their digital footprint 鈥� I was surprised to learn that many students hadn鈥檛 even considered what their footprint might be!
鈥淚 hadn鈥檛 thought about how everything might be connected,鈥� said Graeme O鈥橬eill, a first-year student. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of scary when you think about it.鈥�
For more information and videos from the conference visit .