In this video, Michael Geist speaks at a Geek Girls Toronto event. Hosted at the Mozilla offices, a sold-out audience showed yet again that there is enormous public interest and concern with recent privacy and surveillance developments. The talk focused on the problems associated with lawful access, privacy reform, and surveillance.
One of the most talked about technology tradeoffs today is the question of how much privacy we give up to live in a world of convenience, speed and intelligence. We’re now less anonymous than many people are aware of or comfortable with, and headline-grabbing stories like the Heartbleed Bug don’t provide much reassurance for those of us seeking comfort around data privacy. How can we balance our need for anonymity with the incredible benefits of our connected world? World class Internet privacy expert Dr. Michael Geist helps us understand which current surveillance and privacy issues should be on your mind.
Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa where he holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He has obtained a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Master of Laws (LL.M.) degrees from Cambridge University in the UK and Columbia Law School in New York, and a Doctorate in Law (J.S.D.) from Columbia Law School. Dr. Geist is an internationally syndicated columnist on technology law issues with his regular column appearing in the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen. Dr. Geist is the editor of From “Radical Extremism” to “Balanced Copyright”: Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (2010) and In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law (2005), both published by Irwin Law, the editor of several monthly technology law publications, and the author of a popular blog on Internet and intellectual property law issues.
Dr. Geist serves on many boards, including the CANARIE Board of Directors, the Canadian Legal Information Institute Board of Directors, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board, the Electronic Frontier Foundation Advisory Board, and on the Information Program Sub-Board of the Open Society Institute. He has received numerous awards for his work including the Kroeger Award for Policy Leadership and the Public Knowledge IP3 Award in 2010, the Les Fowlie Award for Intellectual Freedom from the Ontario Library Association in 2009, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award in 2008, Canarie’s IWAY Public Leadership Award for his contribution to the development of the Internet in Canada and he was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 in 2003. In 2010, Managing Intellectual Property named him on the 50 most influential people on intellectual property in the world.
