CATALYSTES DE CHANGEMENT
From legal scholarship to social change Privacy in the age of AI, inclusive climate action, and employment equity for all — through their commitment to public service, Professors Ignacio Cofone, Sébastien Jodoin, and Adelle Blackett, FRSC, Ad E, are leading efforts to answer some of our society’s most pressing challenges.
REDEFINING HARM IN THE INFORMATION ECONOMY By Julia Dyck “In a world where data is the lifeblood of the economy,
In his new book, titled The Privacy Fallacy: Harm
figuring out how to protect people from data harms
and Power in the Information Economy (Cambridge
is paramount,” says Ignacio Cofone, associate pro-
University Press, December 2023), Cofone proposes
fessor and Canada Research Chair in AI Law & Data
a novel legal framework for properly recognizing
Governance at the Faculty of Law. “Current laws and
the value of privacy in the age of AI.
regulations fail to protect us because they are built on outdated ideas that trap lawmakers, regulators, and courts into wrong assumptions about privacy.”
Cofone argues that consent provisions, which have long been considered a cornerstone of privacy protection, are insufficient in preventing AI and
Cofone’s research focuses on online data governance,
privacy harm. This is because much of the harm
with a major focus on law reform in response to tech-
arises from inferences made about individuals and
nological and economic advancements. He is a 2023
groups, where individual agreements become irrele-
laureate of the McGill Principal’s Prize for Outstanding
vant. For instance, one of Cofone’s projects explores
Emerging Researchers and an affiliated fellow at the
how the US correctional system uses AI to predict
Yale Law School Information Society Project.
whether inmates are likely to re-offend when released.
In 2020, he authored the Office of the Privacy Commis-
Because the algorithms are based on arrest data
sioner of Canada’s report setting out the direction of the most significant reform to federal privacy law of the last two decades. This year, the Parliament of Canada is discussing a reform proposal that incorporates most
in which racialized people are disproportionately affected, these people are mistakenly flagged as “risky” more frequently by the AI, magnifying existing systemic inequalities.
of the report’s principal recommendations.
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FOCU S LAW / 2 02 3 -2 02 4 / M C G IL L UN IVE RS ITY
