On Friday, March 10, 2017, the Behavioural Economics in Action at Rotman (BEAR) group at the University of Toronto will bring together academics, researchers, regulators, and industry and consumer groups alike to address consumer privacy challenges in the online world.
Patricia Kosseim, Senior General Counsel, OPC
Funded through the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s (OPC) Contributions Program, the BEAR group will host a symposium highlighting the privacy challenges that consumers face every day while on the Internet.
“Online Privacy: A Human-Centred Approach” will be the theme of the day, and the symposium will feature recent research funded by the OPC’s Contributions Program and explore the key factors—cognitive, contextual, and social—that underlie consumers’ decisions to share their personal information online.
The keynote will be delivered by Patricia Kosseim, Senior General Counsel and Director General, Legal Services, Policy, Research and Technology Analysis Branch of the OPC. It will touch on how to protect privacy and encourage innovation with an understanding of how humans behave. Brent Homan, Director General, PIPEDA Investigations at the OPC, will also present at the event on how policies and programs can be designed to better assist consumers in the online space.
Speakers will include:
- Leslie John (Associate Professor, Harvard Business School)
- Patricia Kosseim (Senior General Counsel and Director General, Legal Services, Policy, Research and Technology Analysis Branch, OPC)
- Judy Duncan (Head Organizer, ACORN Canada)
- Matthew Johnson (Director of Education, MediaSmarts)
- Rajen Akalu (Assistant Professor, University of Ontario Institute of Technology)
- Sonia Chiasson (Associate Professor, Carleton University)
- David Elder (Stikeman Elliott LLP)
- Brent Homan (Director General, PIPEDA Investigations, OPC)
- Lisa Austin (Associate Professor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law)
- Pippa Lawson (Consultant, Philippa Lawson, Barrister & Solicitor)
- Avi Goldfarb (Ellison Professor of Marketing, Rotman School of Management)
- Karen Louis Smith (Assistant Professor, Brock University)
The event will be held at the Rotman School of Management in Toronto. It is open to anyone and everyone, and registration is free.
Brent Homan, Director General PIPEDA Investigations
Every year, the OPC’s Contributions Program funds independent privacy research and related knowledge translation initiatives. The projects generate new ideas, approaches and knowledge about privacy that organizations can apply to better safeguard personal information and that individual Canadians can use to make more informed decisions about protecting their privacy.
In 2012, the OPC also started issuing a second call for applications for events and initiatives to showcase the many projects funded through the Contributions Program under the Pathways to Privacy banner.
The goal of the Pathways to Privacy series is to expand the reach and application of existing privacy research and knowledge translation projects, so that more people can benefit from this work. It also promotes and encourages a dialogue between the people who do privacy research and those who can apply it in the private or public sectors.
For more information on the Contributions Program and Pathways to Privacy events, please see our website.