RightsCon Toronto 2018

Mass Spying 2018 (Electronic Frontier Foundation)

Speakers: Cindy Cohn

Where are we in the fight against mass surveillance? Now that the US authority has been renewed, I'll provide an update on the litigation challenges in the U.S. and Europe and hopefully lead a conversation about how to continue to raise concerns around the world.

Protecting Our Own: Special Rights Just for US (Center for Democracy & Technology)

Speakers: Greg Nojeim

This lightning talk calls into question the continued utility and wisdom of limiting strong human rights protections in surveillance regimes to nationals of the country conducting surveillance, and to domestic as compared to foreign surveillance.

Many countries give their own nationals special rights when it comes to surveillance and data demands that target their own nationals. For example, Germany recently enacted legislation its citizens the highest protections, citizens of the EU an intermediate level of protection, and citizens of every other country a low level of protection. And, when the United States reauthorized the “PRISM” program, which targets people outside the US, much of the debate focused not on the rights of the 100,000 targets, but on the rights of U.S. citizens who may communicate with them.

Some protections may apply only to domestic-to-domestic communications or to people located within the geographic boundaries of the country. In a world where communications between two individuals in one country may pass through a third country, and where surveillance techniques do not readily permit an assessment of the nationality of the communicants, does it make sense for countries to extend strong human rights protections just to their own citizens or just to "domestic" communications? This lightning talk will explore alternative approaches that raise the rights of non-citizens located outside the country conducting the surveillance.

IMSI Catchers: The Problems We Can & Cannot Resolve (Center for Democracy and Technology)

Speakers: Mana Azarmi

This talk will explain what the technology is, and outline the problems with associated with them that can and cannot be resolved.

Keeping a Low Profile? Technology, Risk and Privacy Among Undocumented Immigrants (School of Information, University of Michigan)

Speakers: Tamy Guberek

Surveilling Surveillance: An Intro to Data Security & Data Justice in Canada and the UK (Toronto Legal Hackers; Politai)

Speakers: Joanna Lehrer

A comparison between data security measures in the European Union and Canada.