1. “Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life; and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops.’” - Samuel D. Warren, Louis D. Brandeis, often considered to be the first to speak out publicly about privacy rights, in The Right to Privacy (Harvard Law Review, Vol. IV, No. 5, December 15, 1890).
2. “Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect.” ― Bruce Schneier (2009). “Schneier on Security,” p. 69, John Wiley & Sons (Bruce Schneier, privacy specialist, Public Policy Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School).
3. “To assume that ordinary people have the time, expertise or motivation to be constantly vigilant about surveillance is to sidestep questions of justice and informational fairness. The politics of information in the twenty-first century will increasingly be about how to increase the accountability of those who have responsibility for processing personal data.” ― David Lyon, Principal Investigator of the Big Data Surveillance Project, in “Surveillance, Power and Everyday Life,” a chapter for the Oxford Handbook of Information and Communication Technologies, (Oxford University Press, 2009).
4. “Privacy is rarely lost in one fell swoop. It is usually eroded over time, little bits dissolving almost imperceptibly until we finally begin to notice how much is gone.” ― Daniel J. Solove in Nothing to Hide: The False Tradeoff Between Privacy and Security, p.30 (Yale University Press, 2011).
5. “Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies.” ― Bill Gates, “Bill Gates and President Bill Clinton on the NSA, Safe Sex, and American Exceptionalism,” (Wired magazine, November 2013).
6. “Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” ― Edward Snowden in a question and answer following the screening of the movie, “Snowden.” (September 2016)
7. “Rapid social and technological developments in the use of big data mean that there is limited knowledge of – or transparency around – the ‘behind the scenes’ data processing techniques….
What is clear is that these tools can have a significant impact on people’s privacy.” ― Elizabeth Denham, former BC Information and Privacy Commissioner and former Information Commissioner, United Kingdom. (ICO, “Democracy Disrupted: Personal information and political influence,” July 2018).
8. “Democracy is slow, and that’s a good thing. Its pace reflects the tens of millions of conversations that occur in families, among neighbours, co-workers and friends, within communities, cities and states, gradually stirring the sleeping giant of democracy to action. These conversations are occurring now, and there are many indications that lawmakers are ready to join and to lead. This third decade is likely to decide our fate. ― Shoshanna Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, “You Are Now Remotely Controlled:” Surveillance capitalists control the science and the scientists, the secrets and the truth. (New York Times, January 24, 2020).
9. “We have fallen for the idea that these services are ‘free.’ In reality, we pay with our data into a business model of extracting human attention.” ― Christopher Wylie, Mindf*ck: Inside Cambridge Analytica’s Plot to Break the World (Random House, October 2019)
10. “PIPA (BC’s Personal Information Protection Act) was drafted almost 20 years ago under very different conditions from those which we live under today. Rapidly evolving digital technologies, business models, and public attitudes toward privacy require us to respond in a way that is equal to the unique challenges we face. Inaction is not a viable option. It simply is not.” ― BC Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy. (Address to the Special Committee to Review the Personal Information Protection Act, February 23, 2021).
— With thanks to the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner
