Professional LLM in Privacy and Cybersecurity Law

Credits: 3.0

This course will focus on issues relating to censorship, blocking and surveillance of on-line activities. Lack of access to comprehensive on-line service is a component of data security, yet monitoring on-line behaviour can have a significant impact on privacy. At the same time, governments or government-sponsored actors often have legitimate reasons for such activities, for example, to reduce the incidence of crime or terrorism. We will consider these activities and their competing agendas. Key topics will include some technological aspects of censorship, surveillance and anti-circumvention, attribution of unwanted acts, and justifications for blocking and monitoring.

Credits: 6.0

This course will focus on Technological, Business, Economic, and Legal Perspectives relating to Privacy and Data Security. Our goal is to provide the student with a cross-disciplinary context in which to evaluate and consider current and emerging legal issues in relation to the privacy and cybersecurity, with a particular emphasis on the internet and new technologies.

Credits: 6.0

This course will focus on the statutory aspects of privacy law in Ontario by sector, with references to other Canadian jurisdictions and some key international players, such as the EU and US. It will cover the application of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) to the private sector, the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) and the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) to the public sector and the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) to the health sector.

This course will also consider private law remedies for breach of privacy such as the tort of intrusion upon seclusion and statutory rights of action as well as international and comparative approaches to privacy.

Credits: 3.0

This course examines Canadian and international laws that regulate the use and disclosure of data, particularly personal information, by exploring how these laws balance privacy with the public interest. In doing so, this course examines critical issues such as criminal law protections for data, compelled disclosure for national security, use and disclosure in the public interest, the accommodation of commercial interests for outsourcing and cloud services, and the evolving debate over the monetization of data and its consumer protection and competition law aspects.

Credits: 3.0

The Law of Confidential Information is both a distinct area of law and one that overlaps with other legal regimes protecting personal or proprietary information, and balancing countervailing interests in its disclosure. Topics to be covered may include:
1) history of overlap and divergence between privacy and confidentiality;
2) breach of confidence versus violation of privacy – conceptualizing harms;
3) confidentiality in context – professional obligations, trusts, data custodians;
4) confidentiality in litigation – overlap and differences between privilege and confidentiality;
5) trade secrets;
6) non-disclosure agreements, and other contractual obligations of confidentiality;
7) criminal law regarding protection of secrets, confidentiality, and exploitation (e.g. blackmail, non-consensual distribution of intimate images);
8) the right to access government information containing confidential information; and
9) public interest disclosure of confidential information (e.g. whistleblowers).

Credits: 3.0

When it comes to digital choices for the future, we should be careful what we ask for. The rogue community is alive and thriving. The relentless emergence of Innovative technologies affects every area of legal theory and practice today. This course examines those challenges to the rule of law by novel technologies in media and news gathering, the internet of things, robotics, infrastructure, and other inventions that dramatically alter our social, commercial, political, and personal networks. We review the basic tenets of criminal law and study the idiosyncrasies of digital tools that increase our exposure to data manipulation. We consider the internet as a tool, target, and template of crime and incorporate a Canada-US-EU-Asia comparative study of the role of law to protect privacy, security, free speech, and reputation. We also briefly debate concepts of practice: court procedure, admissible evidence, burdens of proof, rights of the accused and victim (or the parties in civil litigation), and how resolution is theorized and constructed. The course includes a primer in researching and writing a paper at the graduate level. The course meets LSO continuing education requirements and will appeal to those interested in privacy and security law, criminal law, biotechnology law, law and society, law and technology studies, law and policy making, and related disciplines.

Credits: 3.0

This 3-credit course builds on the Crime in the Digital Age: An Overview course. It addresses our society’s dependence upon, and the evolution of, networked communications that have changed computer crime dramatically. It focuses on three of the driving capabilities of digital innovations that have increased our risk at the hands of rogue individuals, groups, and states: autonomous agency, data manipulation, and the politicization of information. Detection and attribution have similarly grown in sophistication, and those technological advancements favour both civil society and those that seek to subvert it. Those innovations enable individuals to levy sophisticated attacks, conduct human trafficking, or threaten election results, at a scale formerly only available to organized crime rings or to rogue governments.

Credits: 3.0

This course considers key concepts underlying cyberwar (e.g. government sponsored cyber attacks on critical infrastructure). Students will examine attack modes such as zero day exploits, and policies by which these are disclosed by security agencies to the public. We will also look at how cyberwar escalates, whether it can be deterred, and at national and international regulation of these activities.

Credits: 3.0

Data protection and cybersecurity are issues that transcend national borders. This course will compare international laws and multi-lateral frameworks that have been established or that are being developed to protect personal information. The course is divided into four parts:
(i) Enforcement Agencies;
(ii) Multi-lateral Instruments and International Cooperation;
(iii) Privacy and Trade;
(iv) Comparative National Approaches.