Limit online mining of kids’ data: CIPPIC
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Limitations should be placed on the mining of kids’ online data for marketing purposes, says the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC).
"The explosion of commercial websites targeting children in recent years is of great concern," says CIPPIC director Philippa Lawson.
She says there’s a special concern because Canadian data protection laws apply the same rules to children’s information as they do to adults’.
"It’s time that we set clear limits on the gathering and use of kids’ data for commercial purposes," she says.
"We need absolute limits, not rules based on some fictional idea of consent, which exploits the credulity of children and is rarely meaningful in the commercial context even when applied to adults."
Meanwhile, Canada needs a centralized, electronic registry of corporate data breaches that would be accessible to anyone, says the organisation.
"Notifying individuals whose data have been compromised, while essential for harm mitigation purposes, is a very indirect and unreliable way of notifying the media," states Lawson.
"A much better way is to require that data breaches be recorded in a public registry, for review by anyone including journalists, consumers, and regulators."
Last year, a parliamentary committee recommended the law be amended to include a new requirement for corporations to tell people about security breaches which exposed their personal information to potential misuse.
"The federal government has since indicated its intention to act on this recommendation," says CIPPIC.
In its January 15 submission, "CIPPIC supports the proposal for mandatory individual notification, but argues that a mandatory reporting to a public registry of data breaches is a more effective way of encouraging corporations to take stronger security measures in the first place," it says, adding:
CIPPIC calls for law reform to address "PIPEDA’s woefully inadequate redress and enforcement regime".
Referring to its 2006 study that showed widespread non-compliance with data protection legislation, CIPPIC says the law needs more teeth if it is to cause corporations to change their practices.
CIPPIC is a legal clinic based at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I don’t think there should be a limit.
I think Data Mining on kids should be completly banned
Actually I think Data Mining should just be banned.
It severs no useful purpose other than getting hacked stolen or lost.
No one should be allowed to have someones personal information on a laptop unless its their own information.