--- From: "Milana Homsi" <milana.homsi@private> To: "'Declan McCullagh'" <declan@private> Subject: Politech - new anonymity project at the university of ottawa Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 10:42:41 -0500 Message-ID: <000701c3bffd$6a4df1b0$6401a8c0@lilu2> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal Declan, In light of the Politech anonymity debate that was going on earlier this week, I thought Politech readers would be interested in knowing about a new anonymity research project just funded in Canada, which was highlighted in today's Ottawa Citizen. Led by Professor Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology at the University of Ottawa, the article details a new $4 million (Cdn!) grant that Kerr received to study the impact and importance of anonymity - called "On The Identity Trail: Understanding the Importance and Impact of Anonymity and Authentication in a Networked Society". Very interesting people are involved in this research project including Ann Cavoukian, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario; Marc Rotenberg, director of EPIC; Steve Mann, the cyborg and wearable computers guru, David Chaum and Stephanie Perrin amongst others. See the article below for details. Regards, Milana ----------- Milana Homsi University of Ottawa, Year 3 e: m@private w: www.milana.ca ------------------------------------------------------------- The $4-million man Ian Kerr's mission: Probe the legal, ethical and political implications as anonymity erodes in a networked world The Ottawa Citizen http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=b8d6d0a8-b170-4cc3-b270-c7af8cdf7c97 Thursday, December 11, 2003 You would think that with a $4-million grant in his pocket, Ian Kerr might buy himself a Shift key. Kerr, the University of Ottawa's recently hired expert in the emerging field of technology, law and ethics, sends exclusively lower-case e-missives to students, colleagues, and journalists. OK, his keyboard may not be faulty, but his cap-less messages gives the impression of a low-key, informal correspondent -- when Kerr is, in fact, a super-achiever. Just 38 years old, he has received the second largest grant awarded by the the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for legal research. The grant, announced this week, more than justifies U of O's enthusiasm when it hired him in 2000 to hold the Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology. Kerr's star is also rising internationally. He sends his e-mails these days from Barcelona, where he is a distinguished visiting scholar at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, on leave from U of O until next fall. He is to take a short sojourn from Spain to the Caribbean early next year, slated to head to Puerto Rico to teach a course in cyborg law, focusing on the line between humans and machines, and how law and ethics can keep pace with the blurring of that line. ... The Canadian government and several industry partners are combining to give Kerr $1 million a year for four years to head an international team -- including some "name" thinkers with arguably bigger reputations than Kerr's -- that will study the effect the information economy has on the concept and practice of anonymity. His project, really a gathering of mini-projects under his supervision, this time lacks a rock 'n' roll reference. It's called "On The Identity Trail: Understanding the Importance and Impact of Anonymity and Authentication in a Networked Society." The project will look into the legal, ethical, and political angles to the steady decline in anonymity brought on by technology. "It's not only about raising awareness about what the problems might be, but also about developing the skills to solve some of the problems around privacy and technology," he says. ... _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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