Rex Murphy: Such was the current which brought us a government that issues commands to the banks that effectively transgress those banks’ own pledges of protection and privacy, that offers its statistical bureaucrats stronger search powers than the Canada Revenue Agency (a surprise to most of us, I’d guess), and which does so without asking its citizens if they’re OK with it, or even telling them what’s going on. I suppose the feeling is, if you think you need the data for “evidence-based” policy, what matter privacy, consent or transparency?
Those outraged at the casualness of privacy invasion, the feelings of violation — they are justified. When a former statistician offers this as a rationalization for personal data collection: “… asking Canadians for consent is unworkable, because (of) high refusal rates …” I hardly think everyone’s going to break out singing.
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