Ann Cavoukian
More info
- Office
- Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, 1997–2014
- Known for
- Privacy by Design
Canadian privacy commissioner who framed Privacy by Design, the idea that data protection belongs in the blueprint rather than bolted on afterwards.
As Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner from 1997 to 2014, Cavoukian pushed the claim that privacy and functionality need not be a zero-sum trade. She boiled it down to seven principles: proactive not reactive, privacy as the default setting, end-to-end protection across the lifecycle, and so on. In 2010 the International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners adopted the framework.
The biggest win came indirectly. Article 25 of the GDPR requires "data protection by design and by default", which is essentially her concept written into law. Critics note that the principles are vague enough for almost any system to claim compliance, but they did give lawyers and engineers a shared vocabulary.