INDISCRETIONS

A word from Stephanie Perrin, President:

“When I founded Digital Discretion in 2002, I set up a blog called Indiscretions.. It seemed like the right name where one  could offer frank comments about privacy.  However, some of my most indiscreet colleagues, or shall we say most forthright and fearless, immediately lined up to post their views.  Since I was still an employee of the federal government, and the law I spent the previous years working on was only just coming into force, I decided that discretion would be the better part of valour, as the saying goes, and I backed off the blog. 

During the past ten years, blogging has certainly grown up, for better or for worse.  I still wonder who reads all these blogs, and if you are wondering why you should read this one, here is why.

We intend to use this blog to post commentary that examines in depth little known facts, history, and current issues having to do with privacy and access to information.  Sometimes we will be controversial, sometimes (we hope) insightful, and sometimes just old and grumpy.  Our intent is that all of our blog posts be well-informed, and polite. That’s why we are operating a moderated blog.

To start this off, I want to explain the name Digital Discretion.  It is not, as a dear friend and colleague teased back in ’02, a dating or escort service.  The phrase came out of my efforts to shepherd a well-framed, properly balanced data protection law for Canada through Parliament.  I know that no matter how carefully drafted or well intentioned your proposal is, once a law is on the books, the results can be not what you expected.  Some things that you thought would be illegal are found to be legal, and vice versa.  This is the way of all laws.

But while a data protection law is important and necessary, the boundaries of the law are not the only touchstone for determining whether any given conduct or activity is proper.  Just because it is legal, doesn’t make it right.  Some things are in bad taste.  Some things are immoral.  Some things are just plain greedy.  Every time you make a decision about the processing of personal information, you are exercising discretion. 

That’s what Digital Discretion offers to help clients to do.  Whatever you do must be something legal, of course, but it should otherwise also be appropriate for your business and your customers.  That’s where the discretion comes in.  Lawyers anywhere can tell you what’s legal.  Digital Discretion has the best lawyers for privacy for that purpose, but we offer more than that.  We help clients to do the right thing.  Doing the legal thing is mandatory.  Doing the right thing is discretionary.  Now that everything is digital and casts a shadow that can last for years, you have to exercise digital discretion.  We are here to help.

As for the blog….we may at times be indiscreet, but we will always try to help!”


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© Digital Discretion 2013