Ann Cavoukian: We have to protect privacy globally or we protect it nowhere!

This Wednesday I was very privileged to interview Dr. Ann Cavoukian. Dr. Cavoukian is the information and privacy commissioner of the province of Ontario (Canada) as well as the creator and foremost global champion of the privacy by design philosophy. She has been one of the most vocal proponents of privacy and the fact that it doesn’t have to come at the price of security or innovation. And so, I was very happy to visit the privacy commissioner’s office and interview her for Singularity 1 on 1. During our 45 minute conversation with Dr. Ann Cavoukian we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: why privacy is vital for freedom; her background as an Armenian born in Egypt; her personal goals and motivation; why privacy and security (or technological innovation) is not a zero-sum game; the main responsibilities and legal powers of the privacy commissioner’s office; privacy by design as the proactive/preventative default solution to positive sum outcomes; the seven founding principles of privacy by design; NSA’s PRISM program, surveillance by design and false positives; why metadata is more important and revealing than content; why she believes that we owe a debt of gratitude to people such as Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange; whether enhanced privacy helps or hurts a company’s bottom line; Digital Rights Management (DRM) and open source software; the internet of things and privacy by design; what we can do to fight for and protect our own privacy… My favorite quotes that I will take away from this conversation with Dr. Cavoukian are: “Privacy knows no borders: we have to protect privacy globally or we protect it nowhere!” and “Have hope! […] Challenge the view that privacy is dead! […] Uphold privacy and know that you can have it. Know that we must have it! We must have privacy and freedom – that’s what it means to be human.”