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The Internet provides a new platform for criminal activity, from cyber-stalking and cyberbullying to Internet luring. This poses new and daunting challenges to law enforcement and legislation. The good news is that modern technology has also provided many new tools to fight crime, particularly in the areas of surveillance and information sharing. Underpinning all of it, however, is concern about whether law-enforcement tools are too invasive of individual privacy, even as they serve the greater good of combatting crime.

Those and other cyber-crime topics will be covered at the upcoming 29th annual International Society for the Reform of Criminal Law (ISRCL) conference, taking place from July 24 to 28 at Halifax’s World Trade and Convention Centre. Its theme is Protecting Privacy: Domestic and International Criminal Justice Responses to Crimes Against Personal Privacy and the Balance Between Individual Privacy and Collective Security.

The conference will examine and debate the challenges that privacy concerns and technological change pose to international and criminal justice systems. Topics include international collaboration in the fight against cyber crime; the human rights implications of sharing personal information across national borders; and the boundaries of surveillance, search, and seizure.

Because so much of cyber crime is borderless, you have to come up with tools of collaboration across countries. — Professor Rob Currie, Director, Law & Technology Institute

Chairing the conference are the Hon. Justice Thomas Cromwell of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Hon. Chief Justice Michael MacDonald (LLB ’79) of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. Schulich School of Law Professor Robert Currie, who is Director of our Law and Technology Institute (LATI), is an ISRCL member and on the conference’s program committee, along with Professor Stephen Coughlan. Currie and Coughlan have written about social media and the law for the Canadian Journal of Law and Technology, which LATI produces and Carswell publishes.

Our alumni who are members of the conference’s program committee are: The Hon. Justice Joshua Arnold (LLB ’89) of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia; The Hon. Justice Duncan Beveridge (LLB ’78) of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal; David Bright (LLB ’72), QC, of Boyne Clarke; The Hon. Judge Elizabeth Buckle (LLB ’92) of the Provincial and Family Courts of Nova Scotia; The Hon. Justice Pat Duncan (LLB ’79) of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia; Ann Marie (McDougall) Simmons (LLB ’83), Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

Privacy concerns cross borders

The speakers are coming from Australia, Ireland, Nigeria, Jamaica, Georgia, South Africa, and the United States – and from Canada and Schulich’s own backyard. On July 25, Coughlan will chair the panel How Is Technology Invading Our Privacy? On July 26, Schulich Law Professor Wayne MacKay – who was recently appointed a LATI faculty member – will present on the Cyber Bullies and Cyber Stalking panel and the Young Justice Professionals Program–Sexual Assault Reform.

On July 27, Currie will be part of the panel examining Hot Topics in Criminal Law, and the next day he’ll discuss Search and Seizure: Recent Developments. Last year he attended the ISRCL’s conference in Edinburgh, where he was also a presenter; he expects to see many of the same attendees at this event. “The criminal law world is fairly tight-knit, even on an international basis,” he says. “And because so much of cyber crime is borderless, you have to come up with tools of collaboration across countries.”

All of the speakers are renowned in their fields of expertise. Some key figures include:

• David Fraser, a leading Canadian privacy lawyer and LATI faculty member who teaches Internet and Media Law at Schulich

• Roger Clark from Rutgers Law School, one of the most senior international criminal law academics in the world

• Mark Fenhalls, QC, deputy head of Chambers and chairman of the Criminal Bar Association in London, England

• The Hon. Justice Chima Centus Nweze of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

Sharing ideas and knowledge

Currie is looking forward to delivering his two 20-minute presentations. “I want to throw out my ideas and hear what other people think of them,” he says. “I also want to listen to other people’s experiences. The goal is to share ideas and knowledge and compare approaches.”

There’s no question that those attending the conference will benefit from the fresh connections and networks they’ll forge. “It’s really helpful for people to make new contacts, especially those from other countries,” says Currie. “If I’m writing a piece comparing three countries and I’ve met someone at the conference from one of those countries, we might end up writing something together or pursuing another type of academic collaboration.”

Law enforcement is always trying to hit a moving target in terms of coming up with technological and legal tools to combat cyber crime. — Professor Rob Currie

For example, at last year’s ISRCL conference in Edinburgh, Currie met Jonathan Clough, a law professor at the Clayton campus of Monash University in Australia, who later published an article in the Canadian Journal of Law & Technology. It’s also useful for prosecutors to know someone in another country they can call when they’re working on a case.

This conference will be far from the last one that will be held on this theme. “Law enforcement is always trying to hit a moving target in terms of coming up with technological and legal tools to combat cyber crime,” says Currie. “It’s something the legal profession is always going to have to keep on top of.”

Click here for more information on the ISRCL conference or to register for it.