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Global Privacy Rankings Released
djmurdoch writes to alert us to the release of Privacy International's privacy ranking of 37 nations. This came out of PI and EPIC's annual Privacy and Human Rights global study, which this year runs to 1,200 pages. From a Globe and Mail article on the rankings: "Germany and Canada are the best defenders of privacy, and Malaysia and China the worst, an international rights group said in a report released Wednesday. Britain was rated as an endemic surveillance society, at No. 33, just above Russia and Singapore... The United States did only slightly better, at No. 30, ranked between Israel and Thailand, with few safeguards and widespread surveillance." PI's study coincided with a report from Britain's information commissioner warning that the UK could "sleep-walk into a surveillance society". The nation now has one CCTV camera for every 14 people.
It's hard to compare between countries but for those of you getting a sense that Canada is so great for privacy ... just like the USA, we have our own government and police spying on citizens. The RCMP arrested a Canadian engineer (Maher Arar, Canadian citizen), presumably after monitoring him covertly, and collaborated with the US Government. The RCMP handed him over to the USA, who then sent him to Syria. He was tortured and detained there.
After returning to Canada, the RCMP continued a smear campaign and tried to identify the man as a terrorist, even though recent documents (from a government inquiry) show that there was no evidence to this effect. The national police did not take measures to clear the man's name, either with the USA or domestically.
Just remember that, next time you think you have freedom and privacy typing away at your office. It's quite possible the national police or spy agency is monitoring your activities, and who knows maybe you too can be labeled a terrorist