Synopses & Reviews
Digital communications technology has immeasurably enhanced our capacity to store, retrieve, and exchange information. But who controls our access to information, and who decides what others have a right to know about us? In
Controlling Knowledge, author Lorna Stefanick offers a thought-provoking and eminently user-friendly overview of current legislation governing freedom of information and the protection of privacy.
Aiming to clarify rather than mystify, Stefanick outlines the history and application of FOIP legislation, with special focus on how these laws affect the individual. To illustrate the impact of FOIP, she examines the notion of informed consent, looks at concerns about surveillance in the digital age, and explores the sometimes insidious influence of Facebook. Specialists in public policy and public administration, information technology, communications, law, criminal justice, sociology, and health care will find much here that bears directly on their work, while students and general readers will welcome the book's down-to-earth language and accessible style.
Intended to serve as a "citizen's guide," Controlling Knowledge is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand how freedom of information and privacy protection are legally defined and how this legislation is shaping our individual rights as citizens of the information age.
Lorna Stefanick is an associate professor in the Governance, Law, and Management program in the Centre for State and Legal Studies at Athabasca University.
Synopsis
In Controlling Knowledge, Lorna Stefanick offers a provocative inquiry into the regulatory regime that governs freedom of information and the protection of privacy (FOIP). The application of FOIP laws requires a balancing act between two potentially competing goals -- the desire to provide citizens with access to the information they need in order to hold others accountable and the desire to safeguard an individual's right to privacy and protect sensitive information from abuse. To illustrate the impact of FOIP, Stefanick examines the secondary uses of medical data, looks at the forms of surveillance that the digital age has enabled, and explores the power and perils of Facebook and the Internet.
Intended to serve as a "citizen's guide," and written in refreshingly down-to-earth language, Controlling Knowledge is a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand the concepts and issues that drive FOIP legislation and how these laws are shaping our individual rights as citizens of the information age.