Rotary Club of Oak Bay Meeting 28 April 2015 - Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner for BC

Reporter and Photos :  Steve Sharlow


The meeting was called to order by Dr. Peter Bamji promptly at 12.15. O Canada sung and invocation by Peter Johankaecht.

Guests were introduced, Eileen Lavigne (Steve Sharlow), John Herbert (Lorna Curtis) 
Jenny Hiblebrand, Eileen Eby and Melanie Jeffs (Jim Force)
Guest Rotarian was Jacqueline Mealing of Qualicum BC

Announcements:

• President Jim did a presentation of a chegue for $1000.00 to "Start Early" and showed a great display of the books that we were able to give to Eileen Eby. She made very gracious thanks to the club for their involvement. She read out a letter from a recipient of the program. 

• Janna reminded all of the Artist tour this Saturday and Sunday. She also pointed out that her group will be doing the centre pieces for the Mardi Gras on the 9th.
• Peter Lawrie noted that Pablo will be performing a concert this weekend in Oak Bay. and a presentation of a cheque of $750 was given to Disaster Aid Canada.
• Joan Firkins made a plea for more assistance for the up coming Mardi Gras. 
• Bob Schelle told us they are looking for some one to do the roster each month.

Lynn Murray won the 50/50.
David Maxwell was our Celebrations Master. He found us all wanting for knowledge and we paid accordingly.

Guest Speaker:
Sabrina Corraini introduced our guest speaker Hamish Flannigan.

Hamish is a lawyer in the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC. He had nice things to say about Rotary. His involvement has been somewhat limited but he has always found the members to be very open to sharing, accepting of new ideas and very friendly.

He stated that privacy is the New Frontier. We have gone from mounds of paper files to computerized data. This means that much more data on people can be stored on significantly little space, and that data can be accessed quickly and, unfortunately, by a wide body of people. He talked of the ease by which information on computers can be accessed and how one's location can be ascertained from the signals on smart phones, tablets and laptops as well as one's searching preferences. It can used for advertising purposes but also for more nefarious purposes. 

Examples of breaches of privacy were given regarding health files being accessed by employees who did not have the authority to access them. Other examples related to the hacking of the financial information of  large corporations, such as Target, which resulted in customers' financial information being compromised.

Hamish said that there are programs that help you block such incursions of your private data. He also advized  that one should adjust their wifi  settings so that it requires a password.

The Commission advocates Proactive Risk Management:. Privacy Natters. Consider the Risks.

Cory gave thanks to the speaker and Perry closed the meeting.

(For detailed information on the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the applicable legislation and privacy related resources, go to this website .)