Two Federal Privacy Commission Studies on Citizens Watching Other Citizens

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has published two independent studies it commissioned on the legal implications of the use of social media by private citizens to report on other private citizens:

"In June 2011, bystanders documented the scene as a riot broke out in downtown Vancouver following Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. Tips were submitted by the public to the Vancouver police, which included over 1,000,000 photos and over 1,000 hours of video. These events provide a real-life scenario to study the emergence of citizen journalism and the potential for misuse of personal information that comes with it."

The two studies now being made available are:

• Surveillance and spectacle: eighty-four observations on citizen journalism, social media, mobile devices and mobs by Internet strategist and CBC radio columnist Jesse Hirsh  
• No mistakes, no forgetting: privacy in the age of social media by lawyer Kent Glowinski