Don Lenihan-president-Crossing Boundaries

A decade ago, Bruce Phillips, the privacy commissioner of the day, was asked how we should protect privacy from the spread of new technologies through governments. He replied that they should always have to seek citizens' consent for how they use their personal information. If governments and businesses are bound by the same principle, they have tended to apply it differently, partly in response to cues from the public. Comparing the two yields a couple of timely lessons.