Profound changes in information and communications technologies require a new, radical approach to how we protect our privacy, says Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian.

Privacy protection must be built into new technologies right from inception, Cavoukian said in a paper delivered at the University of Waterloo Monday.

In the paper, titled Privacy and Radical Pragmatism: Change the Paradigm, Cavoukian stressed that she does not believe enhancing surveillance and security in society need to come at the expense of privacy.

"Conversely," she said, "I am deeply opposed to the viewpoint that privacy must be viewed as an obstacle to achieving other technical objectives.

"I do not believe it is advisable that privacy advocates reject all forms of technology possessing any surveillance capacity, overlooking their growing applications and potential benefits.

"This has not worked in the past and is unlikely to work in the future."

The problem can be solved by building privacy measures right into surveillance systems, she said.

"I call this 'privacy by design,'" Cavoukian said.

"The effect is to minimize the unnecessary collection and use of personal data by the system while at the same time strengthening data security and empowering individuals to exercise greater control over their own information.

"This can result in a technology that achieves strong security and privacy."

Protection can be added to biometrics, video, ID tags

Cavoukian outlined what she calls "privacy-enhancing technologies" that could counter the privacy invasion enabled by increasingly common tools such as biometrics (using biological data such as fingerprints to identify people), radio-frequency identification tags and video surveillance.

She said biometric technologies can be designed to limit their function to authenticating a person's right to fly or enter a building without necessarily identifying the person and without creating large, centralized databases of biometric data.

In the case of radio-frequency identification device tags increasingly being used on consumer products to track inventories, Cavoukian said a number of solutions to unwanted surveillance have been proposed over the years, but "few have taken hold."

Perhaps the most promising solution, she said, is the clipped tag developed by IBM, "which helps defeat unwanted surveillance."

Cavoukian said she sees video encryption as the way to deal with increased use of video surveillance in society.

She said surveillance video can be encrypted in such a way that only an authorized official with a decoding key can actually see what's on the video.

Cavoukian said her "radical pragmatism" approach to privacy is not intended in any way to conflict with her office's legislated mandate to uphold Ontario privacy and access to information laws.

"Rather it is to complement and strengthen them," she said.