Personal Medical Information: Privacy or Personal Data Protection?

Some of the existing literature concerning the privacy of health information seems to suggest that medical information has a particularly special nature; either through its oft-cited association with dignity or the need for its ‘‘unobstructed’’ use by health care practitioners for a variety of reasons. It is against such a backdrop that this paper will review and compare a number of legislative mechanisms that have been designed to meet the challenge of safeguarding the privacy of personal information without completely hindering the continued flow of information required by economic and health care systems. An attempt will be made to situate the Canadian legal environment in respect of privacy legislation within a suitable theoretical framework: Elizabeth Neill’s model of privacy. Aside from providing the necessary conceptual framework for the paper that will help delineate between privacy and personal data protection, Neill’s model will be adapted to develop a privacy–personal data protection continuum, on which the various legislative devices will be positioned. The analysis of the various statutory mechanisms will be limited to a descriptive discussion designed to conceptualize the degree to which contemporary legislation is more aptly construed as protective of privacy or personal data. Though some attention will be devoted to discussing the analytic advantages of Neill’s model in responding to such a query, a normative assessment of her model or the various acts is beyond the scope of this paper. The research questions driving this paper include the fol- lowing three: (i) Considering Neill’s ontology of privacy rights, are the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data and the European Union Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data best characterized as protective of privacy or personal data? (ii) Do the various provincial health information protection Acts go beyond the Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act such that health information protection might better be considered more about privacy than personal data protection? (iii) Which are aligned with Neill’s model? In order to respond to these questions, the first part of the essay will be devoted to explicating Neill’s ontology of privacy. The paper will then consider the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data and the European Union Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data in order to assess whether they protect privacy or personal data. The next section will engage in a comparative examination of the Canadian federal Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act and the four provincial health information protection Acts (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario). Based upon this comparison, attention will then turn toward an assessment of whether the various statutes are concerned more with privacy or personal data protection, and where they fit in the privacy debate based on Neill’s model

How Library and Information Science Faculty Perceive and Engage with Open Access

This paper presents the inferential analysis of a systematic survey of North American Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty awareness of, attitudes toward, and experience with open-access scholarly publishing. The study reveals that engagement with open access is related to faculty rank and perceptions about tenure and promotion committee assessments of open-access publications. The perceived constraints of the tenure and promotion system within the academy impact LIS faculty engagement with open-access publishing in ways found in other academic disciplines. However, those who themselves engage with open access tend to assess publications in such venues more favourably than those without such publishing experience and are similarly more predisposed to believe that tenure and promotion committees would evaluate such publications favourably. Nonetheless, while in general it is clear that experience with open access reduces some of the concerns about the effects of this type of scholarly publishing on career opportunities, there remains a substantial amount of equivocacy among LIS faculty about open access

An Examination of Library and Information Studies Faculty Experience with and Attitudes toward Open Access Scholarly Publishing

Open access (OA) scholarly publishing has grown steadily in academia for the past few decades as an alternative to traditional subscription-based journal publishing, particularly as concerns mount over the affordability of periodicals. This poster presents an initial analysis of a systematic survey of North American Library and Information Science (LIS) faculty attitudes towards and experiences with OA publishing. This work demonstrates that a majority of LIS faculty do agree that major changes need to be made to the current state of scholarly communication, and that a majority of LIS faculty see OA journals as comparable to traditional, subscription based peer-reviewed journals. However, OA publication behaviors are not equal across faculty rank, and tenure track faculty are not publishing in OA journals at the same rate as their tenured colleagues. Tenure-track faculty also have higher rates of indicating they believe promotion/tenure committees will evaluate OA journal publications as less favorable than traditional, subscription based peer-reviewed journals. The findings from this study raise important questions about overcoming barriers to OA participation.ye

The Enclosure and Alienation of Academic Publishing: Lessons for the Professoriate

This paper interrogates and situates theoretically from a Marxist perspective various aspects and tensions that inhere in the contemporary academic publishing environment. The focus of the article is on journal publishing. The paper examines both the expanding capitalist control of the academic publishing industry and some of the efforts being made by those seeking to resist and subvert the capitalist model of academic publishing. The paper employs the concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation as a theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of capitalist control of academic publishing. Part of my purpose with this discussion will be to advance the case that despite a relatively privileged position vis-à-vis other workers, academic cognitive labourers are caught up within and subject to the constraining and exploitative practices of capitalist production processes

Personal Medical Information: Privacy or Personal Data Protection?

Some of the existing literature concerning the privacy of health information seems to suggest that medical information has a particularly special nature; either through its oft-cited association with dignity or the need for its ‘‘unobstructed’’ use by health care practitioners for a variety of reasons. It is against such a backdrop that this paper will review and compare a number of legislative mechanisms that have been designed to meet the challenge of safeguarding the privacy of personal information without completely hindering the continued flow of information required by economic and health care systems. An attempt will be made to situate the Canadian legal environment in respect of privacy legislation within a suitable theoretical framework: Elizabeth Neill’s model of privacy. Aside from providing the necessary conceptual framework for the paper that will help delineate between privacy and personal data protection, Neill’s model will be adapted to develop a privacy–personal data protection continuum, on which the various legislative devices will be positioned. The analysis of the various statutory mechanisms will be limited to a descriptive discussion designed to conceptualize the degree to which contemporary legislation is more aptly construed as protective of privacy or personal data. Though some attention will be devoted to discussing the analytic advantages of Neill’s model in responding to such a query, a normative assessment of her model or the various acts is beyond the scope of this paper. The research questions driving this paper include the fol- lowing three: (i) Considering Neill’s ontology of privacy rights, are the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data and the European Union Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data best characterized as protective of privacy or personal data? (ii) Do the various provincial health information protection Acts go beyond the Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act such that health information protection might better be considered more about privacy than personal data protection? (iii) Which are aligned with Neill’s model? In order to respond to these questions, the first part of the essay will be devoted to explicating Neill’s ontology of privacy. The paper will then consider the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data and the European Union Directive on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to the Processing of Personal Data and on the Free Movement of Such Data in order to assess whether they protect privacy or personal data. The next section will engage in a comparative examination of the Canadian federal Personal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act and the four provincial health information protection Acts (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario). Based upon this comparison, attention will then turn toward an assessment of whether the various statutes are concerned more with privacy or personal data protection, and where they fit in the privacy debate based on Neill’s model