Jeff Ward, is the CEO of Animikii and a member of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence working group on responsible AI. His areas of expertise encompass the development of technology solutions tailored for Indigenous communities and organizations and the integration of traditional Indigenous values and culture into modern business prac…

Guests and Transparency Showcase exhibits Council of Ontario Universities Steve Orsini, President and CEO Josh Lovell, Director, Policy and Planning Town of Innisfil Mike Melinyshyn, Chief Financial Officer, Director of Corporate Services and Innovation Damien Mainprize, Business Performance Specialist Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Conservat…

Mediation is a powerful and efficient way to resolve freedom of information appeals. This episode explores the value-add of mediation and how building trust, active listening, and education can lead to win-win settlements for both parties. Commissioner Kosseim speaks with Shaun Sanderson, a mediator at the IPC, about how mediation works, what parti…

Timely information sharing is crucial to prevent harm resulting from intimate partner violence (IPV). Sometimes, however, professionals may hesitate to share information due to misunderstandings about privacy laws. Priya Shastri, Director of Programs at WomanAct, provides insights from the front lines on information sharing, building trusting relat…

Dr. Devin Singh is an emergency physician and lead of clinical AI and machine learning in Paediatric Emergency Medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids). He is also co-founder and CEO of Hero AI. Combining medicine and machine learning [2:21] A patient death as a spark for thinking differently about health care delivery [3:27] Demystify…

Robert Fabes is a registered psychotherapist. His focus is on meaning-based existential mental health and addictions counselling. In addition to counselling clients in his private practice, he’s an addictions and trauma counsellor at The Ottawa Mission. Misconceptions about homelessness [5:06] Privacy concerns for people experiencing homelessness […

Cynthia Khoo is a technology and human rights lawyer and most recently, a senior associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, in Washington, D.C. She is a research fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. How facial recognition technology works [4:09] Use of facial recognition technology by government agencies [8:0…

Commissioner Kosseim speaks with Elyane Ruel, Head of School, and Grade 7 and 8 students from Westboro Academy in Ottawa, Ontario. Do kids even care about privacy anymore? [2:01] What does privacy mean, how would you define it? [3:43] Sharing information with some, but not with others [5:56] Strategies for protecting yourself online [8:22] Respecti…

A round up of key moments from season three of the Info Matters podcast, winner of the 2023 Canadian Podcast Award for Outstanding Technology Series. How policing tools and methods have leapt decades in a few short years [1:03] (from S3-Episode 1: Predicting crimes before they occur: not so sci-fi anymore with the IPC’s Dr. Christopher Parsons) Why…

Professors Jane Bailey and Valerie Steeves co-lead the eQuality Project. Its mission is to help young people create a networked environment where they can participate equally, free from surveillance, and identity-based harassment. What led to research investigating the societal and cultural impacts of the internet on teens and particularly girls [3…

Jennifer Chandler is a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics. You can learn more about her research at jennniferchandler.ca. A career that combines law, brain sciences and neurotechnology [2:54] Neurotechnology explained [4:29] Examples of how neurotechnology is used in health care [7:17] Applications of n…

Jason Besner is Director of Partnerships at the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (the Cyber Centre). Jason’s group is responsible for managing strategic engagements, with Canadian and international partners, that have the greatest impact on cyber security for Canadians. Focusing on national level outcomes, Partnerships supports and enables all ot…

Laura Neuman is a Senior Advisor with the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. She leads the implementation of the center’s Inform Women, Transform Lives campaign. Prior to joining the Carter Center in 1999, she was staff attorney at Legal Action of Wisconsin and is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School. The journey from a law practice…

Engaging with patients, families, and caregivers can help build a better, more inclusive health system. Betty-Lou Kristy, Chair of the Minister’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, speaks about her mission to improve patient care in Ontario by putting patients and families at the center of policy-making. Through their lived experiences in the hea…

Dr. Bartha Maria Knoppers is a world-renowned expert and pioneer in the field of health law and bioethics, with particular focus on genomics. Her groundbreaking work has fundamentally changed our understanding of the complex intersection between science law, technology and ethics. She currently serves as the Director of the Centre for Genomics and …

Philippe Dufresne, Privacy Commissioner of Canada, is a leading legal expert on human rights, administrative, and constitutional law. He previously served as the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) oversees compliance with the Privacy Act, which covers the personal info…

Dr. Alex Himelfarb is the chair of Council of Canadian Academies’ Expert Panel on the Socioeconomic Impacts of Science and Health Misinformation. He chairs the board of the Narwhal and is a member of the boards of Atkinson Foundation, the Public Service Foundation and the Advisory Committee of the Auditor General, and is a fellow of the Broadbent a…

Christopher Parsons is a Senior Technology and Policy Advisor at the IPC. Prior to joining the IPC in early 2023, he was a Senior Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Choosing to focus on research related to privacy, national secu…

Dr. Kwame McKenzie is CEO of the Wellesley Institute, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Director of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). A professional journey combining psychiatry and leading a policy think tank [2:20] Mental health information, more sensitive that other ki…

Eric Ward is the Assistant Commissioner of Strategic Initiatives and External Relations at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). Prior to joining the IPC, he was the Senior Director at Policy Horizons Canada, the federal government’s centre for strategic foresight. The road to the IPC and strategic foresight work …

Nicole Bonnie is the CEO of the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS). She’s also a member of the IPC’s Strategic Advisory Council. Pursuing a career in the child welfare sector [2:52] Making history as the first Black CEO of the OACAS [4:53] Privacy misunderstandings and hesitancy about sharing information with a children’s aid s…

Keith Baybayon is a first-year student at McGill University and the former president of the Ontario Student Trustees Association, the largest student stakeholder group in Ontario. He’s also a member of the IPC’s Strategic Advisory Council. Becoming a student leader and advocate [3:53] A day in the life of a connected high school student [5:55] Usin…

Jane Kovarikova is a former foster child, current PhD candidate, and advocate for child rights across Canada. She is the founder of the Child Welfare Political Action Committee, a Canadian charity advocating for a progressive child welfare system. From foster kid to advocate for changes in child welfare policy [2:53] Outcomes for youth after they l…

Jim Balsillie is the founder of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the Centre for Digital Rights, and the former co-CEO of Research In Motion (BlackBerry). From tech executive to tech critic [4:38] Toronto’s Sidewalk Labs project [5:50] Why data governance is the most pressing public policy issue of our time [7:21] The false dichot…

Dr. Alana Saulnier is an assistant professor at Queen’s University. Her research focuses on relationships between legal authorities and the public with a particular focus on how the use of surveillance technologies (e.g., body-worn cameras, unpiloted aerial vehicles, etc.) augments those relationships. She has held formal research partnerships with…

Dave Meslin is a community organizer, activist, and bestselling author. Topics discussed in this episode: The systemic barriers that keep people on the sidelines of community involvement and political decision making [4:02] Taking cues from private sector customer service [7:53] Tapping into collective wisdom and disrupting the status quo [9:47] Th…

Dr. Frederick Bieber is a medical geneticist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and an associate professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. DNA profiling and how can it be used to identify bodies, track down blood relatives, and as evidence in court [4:55] The role of professional genealogists in investigations [8:35] H…

Dr. Khaled El Emam is a Canada Research Chair in Medical Artificial Intelligence and a professor in the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Medicine. He is a co-founder of Replica Analytics. Developing privacy enhancing technologies to enable access to health data to support research [3:46] What is synthetic data? [5:36] Anonymous versions of real cl…

Shafique Shamji is The Ottawa Hospital’s executive vice president and chief information officer. Nyranne Martin is the hospital’s general counsel and chief privacy officer. Fostering a privacy and security culture at The Ottawa Hospital [3:31] Ensuring privacy and security are integrated as part of the hospital’s overall enterprise risk management …

Matthew Johnson is the director of education at MediaSmarts, Canada’s not-for-profit centre for digital and media literacy. He is the author of many of MediaSmarts’ lessons, parent materials, and interactive resources and a lead on MediaSmarts’ research projects. Do young people really care about privacy? [6:13] How teens carefully curate their onl…

Jim Bronskill is an award-winning reporter with the Ottawa bureau of The Canadian Press news agency, specializing in security and intelligence, policing, and justice-related issues. He also frequently writes about privacy in the digital realm. The path to a career in journalism [2:31] How investigative journalism has changed over the years [4:11] F…

Dr. Jonathan Dewar is the Chief Executive Officer of the First Nations Information Governance Centre. Carmen Jones is Director of Research and Data Management, for the Chiefs of Ontario. The First Nations Information Governance Centre and its work [3:25] OCAP (ownership, control, access, and possession) and what the principles mean for data collect…

Sunny Marriner is project lead of the Violence Against Women Advocate Case Review for the Improving Institutional Accountability Project, an initiative funded by the Government of Canada. Stephen McCammon is a legal counsel at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. He provides legal advice on issues relating to privacy, …

Dr. Duncan Rozario is chief of surgery at the Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in Oakville, Ontario. He also runs a busy outpatient practice at the North Oakville Medical Centre where he uses sophisticated digital tools to provide virtual care to his patients. Topics discussed in this episode: Forging relationships with patients [2:34] The key …

Daniel Solove is the John Marshall Harlan Research Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School and one of the world’s leading experts on privacy law. He is also the president and CEO of TeachPrivacy, a company that provides computer-based privacy and security training to schools, companies, hospitals, and other organizations aro…

Gillian Shaw is the Director of Adjudication at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). She and her team of adjudicators hear and decide access to information appeals under Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and its municipal counterpart, the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protectio…

Kelly Burke est Ombudsman adjointe et commissaire aux services en français de l’Ontario. Au Bureau de l’Ombudsman, elle dirige l’Unité des services en français, qui fait enquête sur les plaintes et formule des recommandations visant à améliorer la prestation des services en français à l’échelle du gouvernement. Sujets abordés dans cet épisode : L’h…

Info Matters Episode 1 Show Notes: Don’t get caught! Protect yourself against phishing Fred Carter is a senior policy and technology advisor with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). He has more than 20 years experience in the public and private sector, providing analysis and recommendations about privacy and sec…

Conversations about people, privacy, and access to information. Hosted by Patricia Kosseim, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only. It should not be relied upon as a substitute for legal advice. Unless specifically stated otherwise, t…