Chris Conrath

Lawyers and the law tend to exist only in the background in the world of IT. In fact, they mostly pop into the picture around contract signing time. But the events of the past few weeks have prompted me to take a closer look at the increasing role being played by the legal profession in the IT world.

With a variety of international retailers pushing for its adoption, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology has been in the news a great deal recently, and at the same time unintentionally pushed itself to the forefront of an ongoing debate around its ability to invade personal privacy if used incorrectly or unethically.

Here in Canada we take technology for granted. Our personal data is relatively secure, Internet access is unfettered and no one comes pounding at our door demanding to see our software licenses. In much of the rest of the world this is often not the case.

Computers infected with the Mydoom worm launched a massive attack against the Web site of Unix software maker The SCO Group Inc. Sunday, cutting off access to the company's Web site.

Back in World War II Calvin Gotlieb was part of a team of Canadians asked to design radio proximity fuses for artillery shells so they could be detonated when they were close to enemy aircraft. Little did he know at the time but the project would be the launching pad for a career that has earned Gotlieb the title of father of Canadian computing.

With obligatory PIPEDA compliance less than a month away, the law firm Gardiner Roberts LLP held a seminar in Toronto last month in an attempt to help clear up some of the misunderstandings surrounding the new federal act.

With a series of events hitting corporate Canada over the past 12 months, from SARS and the massive blackout to attacks from the SoBig and Blaster worms, companies are intensifying their disaster preparedness but finding that a siege mentality often exists between departments.

A commonly heard complaint when real time IT implementations are being considered is the apparently prohibitive cost - that the return on investment is too small to justify the hefty up-front expense. But for two companies, this perception turned out to be untrue.