Articles by author: Brock University

• Panel discussion to focus on data privacy and how to protect your information

  Thursday, March 16, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 9 March 2017  – R00051

  Data privacy, or the lack thereof, is back on the forefront this week after the leak of classified CIA documents showing everything from cellphones to smart TVs can be accessed.

  A panel of data privacy experts will be discussing the significance of online data privacy and what we can do to protect ourselves on Wednesday, March 15 during a forum at Brock University.

  “It is important to create opportunities for citizens to consider the data that organizations collect and then analyze about us,” says Karen Louise Smith, Assistant Professor of Communication, Popular Culture and Film. “There are many unseen algorithms that process our data and shape our experiences online, but they operate opaquely and are difficult to understand.”   

  Smith will join fellow panelist Natasha Tusikov, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, and keynote speaker Andrew Hilts, Executive Director of Open Effect, at the event.

  Hilts conducts research and designs software systems to empower citizens to exercise their digital rights. During his talk at Brock, Hilts will share insights from the design of Access My Information, a website that engages users to request their personal data from organizations ranging from the Canadian government to online dating services. Hilts will also share his experiences in making privacy issues understandable and relatable for the general public.

  Smith’s research explores the tensions between openness, privacy and participation in a digital world. She previously led a Privacy Badges co-design project with Hive Toronto, and is a collaborator on The eQuality Project to examine issues of privacy and cyberbullying facing youth. Her talk will explore the development of digital policy literacy with youth.

  Tusikov, author of the recently published book, Chokepoints: Global Private Regulation on the Internet, will be examining the informal practices and policies by internet firms and the sharing of personal information with third parties.

  “Internet companies like eBay routinely share their customers’ personal data with third parties such as law enforcement agencies,” says Tusikov. “However, few people likely realize that these third parties also include private security companies.”

  Tusikov says these security companies are in the market of brand-protection — monitoring marketplaces to track down people selling counterfeit goods.

  The discussion is being hosted by the Transmedia Research Network within the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University and is funded by the Council of Research in the Social Sciences within the Faculty of Social Sciences. It will be held in Brock’s Welch Hall Atrium and is open to the public. Free registration is available on Eventbrite. 

  What: Data Privacy Activism: A panel discussion on data privacy, digital rights and emerging activism
  When: Wednesday, March 15 – 3 to 5 p.m. with reception to follow
  Where: Welch Hall Atrium, Brock University  
  Who: Privacy experts Andrew Hilts, Executive Director at Open Effect; Natasha Tusikov, Adjunct Professor of Sociology; Karen Louise Smith, Assistant Professor of Communication, Popular Culture & Film; Moderator Marian Bredin

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
   
  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases

• Brock researcher finds climate change further endangering Canadian bison

  Wednesday, March 08, 2017 | By Brock University

  MEDIA RELEASE: 7 March 2017 – R00049

  Climate change is making things worse for Canada’s largest land-dwelling mammal, a research team has found.

  The wood bison of the Northwest Territories is already on the country’s threatened species list, but more precipitation is forcing the animal into areas that pose dangers to them, says Brock University geographer and research team member Michael Pisaric.

  For decades, the wood bison population has been living in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary on the western shore of Great Slave Lake in N.W.T. The iconic animal lives off of grass-like plants called sedges, which are common along lake shorelines in the region.

  But these sedge meadows are increasingly becoming flooded as the lakes expand “and the bison’s preferred habitat declines,” explains Pisaric, a professor in Brock’s Department of Geography and Tourism Studies.

  Pisaric was part of a research team led by the University of Ottawa that included the government of N.W.T. and five partner universities, including Brock. They studied satellite images from the 1980s to present and, before that, sediment cores taken from a number of lakes in the area to track lake surface changes over the last few centuries.

  The team’s study, “Broad-scale lake expansion and flooding inundates essential wood bison habitat,” was published in the Feb. 23 edition of the journal Nature Communications.

  “We found out from satellite data that the total area of the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary covered in water was about five per cent in the 1980s,” explains Pisaric. “This has increased to over 11 per cent of the land area now.”

  While the exact causes of the lake expansion remain uncertain, Pisaric says warmer temperatures bring more precipitation and some permafrost thawing.

  Because the bison sanctuary land is so flat, even slight changes in precipitation and flow causes water bodies to grow. He says some lakes in the area have expanded “hundreds of times in size” and are the largest they’ve been in at least 200 years.

  “Surveys of the bison population at the same time indicate that, as the lakes have expanded, the Mackenzie herd appears to have abandoned the former core of its range within the protected area of the sanctuary as habitat becomes inundated,” says Pisaric.

  The wood bison are moving toward a busy highway that connects Edmonton with Yellowknife. The road is often travelled by large trucks going back and forth from the North’s diamond mines.

  “Incidents of collisions have increased,” says Pisaric. “It’s especially dangerous in the fall, when daylight begins to decrease again and there’s no snow cover yet; drivers don’t see the bison until they’re right on top of them.”

  For more information, see the story in The Brock News.
   

  For more information or for assistance arranging interviews:
   
  * Dan Dakin, Media Relations Officer, Brock University ddakin@brocku.ca, 905-688-5550 x5353 or 905-347-1970

  Brock University Marketing and Communications has a full-service studio where we can provide high definition video and broadcast-quality audio.

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  Categories: Media releases