Privacy and Civil Rights

Historically, civil rights legislation was enacted to combat group-based discrimination, a problem exacerbated by contemporary approaches to personal data collection, artificial intelligence, algorithmic analytics, and surveillance. A large number of influential legal scholars, policy analysts and advocacy groups in the United States now assert that privacy is a civil right.  Tech policy, they contend, should be guided by an understanding that privacy and civil rights are vitally connected. Whether privacy is a civil right, protects civil rights or is protected by civil rights, the novel pairing of civil rights and privacy rights commends itself. 

Privacy rights are aspirational moral, human rights and civil rights that ought to be a part of society’s positive law protections to foster goods that go to the heart of thriving lives and effective civic participation for everyone. Yet the recent pairing of privacy and civil rights in the United States context has been disappointing. Recent efforts in Congress, state legislatures and the White House to advance equitable and non-discriminatory tech policy proposals have been largely unsuccessful. The current White House is not expected to make equitable AI or other equitable and non-discriminatory data protection policy a priority.

About the Distinguished Speaker

Anita L. Allen is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. A graduate of Harvard Law with a Philosophy PhD from the University of Michigan, Allen is a globally renowned expert on the philosophy and law of privacy. Honors include the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology Privacy Award, the Philip Quinn Prize for Service to Philosophy and Philosophers, and the Hastings Center Bioethics Founders Award.  She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.  She served under President Obama as a member of the National Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Allen has written books, textbooks and scholarly articles, and has also contributed to newspapers, magazines, podcasts and blogs. She has appeared on numerous television and radio programs, and lectured across the Americas and in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.  She presented the 2024 H.L.A. Hart Memorial Lecture at Oxford.

About the Ian R. Kerr Memorial Lecture

The Ian R. Kerr Lecture is a new high-level annual lecture established to enable distinguished thinkers from around the world to share with the public the results of original study on important subjects of contemporary interest on current and future technological issues.

The lecture aims to continue the remarkable legacy of Dr. Ian R. Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology at the University of Ottawa, by fostering discussions on the legal, ethical, and societal implications of technology, and promoting innovative research and programming in these areas. Through this platform, we hope to engage, enlighten, and encourage the exchange of ideas, honouring Dr. Kerr's contributions and his profound impact on students, faculty, and his field

A founding member of the University of Ottawa Centre for Law, Technology and Society, Ian joined the Faculty of Law, Common Law Section in 2000 and was named as the Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology in 2001. He identified the need to examine the legal and ethical implications of technology years before these issues emerged as leading societal concerns. His towering career spanned a myriad of law and policy challenges including robots and the law, artificial intelligence, privacy, surveillance, security, digital rights management, algorithms, electronic contracting, human rights, and human enhancement. As always, he brought a unique, multi-disciplinary perspective, drawing on his four-way appointment in Law, Medicine, Philosophy, and Information Studies.

He was an immensely gifted teacher, a world-class researcher, a devoted colleague, and generous friend and mentor. He was widely recognized as a remarkable talent, whose impact on students, faculty, and his field will be felt for decades to come. In the policy realm, his work was quoted by the Supreme Court of Canada, by politicians in the House of Commons and the Senate, and in numerous government reports. His generosity, warmth, and good humour touched the lives of thousands of people. Whether national privacy commissioners or first-year law students, he made time for everyone, offering encouragement, insight, and a deeply held view that everyone had an opportunity and responsibility to help shape our collective digital future.