Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: norm@ontenv.uucp (Norman S. Soley)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Ownership of information about yourself
Message-ID: <1664@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Mar 88 05:20:15 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Organization: Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Toronto
Lines: 40
Approved: taylor@hplabs

The Province of Ontario's new law on "Freedom of Information and
Protection of Individual Privacy" lays out some interesting concepts 
in this area. 

	1)	No government agency may collect information about 
		a citizen without his/her knowledge (except in the
		pursuit of a criminal investigation)

	2)	information about you may not be collected from third 
		parties without your express written consent. 

	3)	When information is collected it must be stated for 
		what purpose it will be used and uses outside of the 
		original intent are not permitted. 

	4) 	Any citizen has the right to examine government
		records regarding themself. And apply for corrections
		if the information is inaccurate (arbited by a
		quasi-judicial panel). 

This is not the letter of the law but certianly the spirit as it is
being conveyed to the provinces civil servants. 

It also raises some complicated issues about electronic record
keeping. The act requires civil servants to interpret any information
which is stored in a coded form but there is no specification of
interpret to what. English, French, or some other language, or on diskette 
or by telecommunications link. How can I as a citizen be certian that
computerized records about me are accurate? Should I accept a printed
transcript provided by a civil servant? or demand to be allowed to log
in to the Government mainframe and run searches myself? That of course
comprimises the privacy of other citizens records. It will be
interesting to see what comes out of this over the next couple of
years. 

"Definitely speaking for myself on this one, in no way should anything
in this posting be considered as other than the opinion of a private
citizen"

Norman Soley