Dr. Christopher Parsons received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Guelph, and his Ph.D from the University of Victoria. He is currently the Managing Director of the Telecom Transparency Project and a Research Associate at the Citizen Lab, in the Munk School of Global Affairs with the University of Toronto. His research focuses on third-party access to telecommunications data. His work has been recognized by information and privacy commissioners, Canadian political parties, and national and international non-profits as advancing the state of privacy discourse.
Christopher has written policy reports for civil advocacy organizations in Canada, submitted evidence to Parliamentary committees, and is an active member of the Canadian privacy advocacy community. He has been involved in projects examining: lawful access legislation, national security and intelligence legislation and practices, identity management systems, automatic license plate recognition technologies, network management and surveillance practices in Western democratic states, technical and policy issues linked to encryption, privacy issues linked to social media services, policy and privacy challenges associated with IMSI Catchers, and the privacy implications of unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to publishing in academic journals and presses he routinely presents findings to members of government and the media.