Anybody who tells you they know for sure what's in store is probably lying, or just just guessing at best. What has become clear--and we certainly see this from jurisdictions and privacy commissioners from around the world--is that we are collecting ever more data. The ability to access that data, regardless of location, is something that technology has changed quite dramatically, and something we now have to factor into the kind of frame in which we live. The kind of data we have access to, DNA data and other sorts of biometric information, is the sort of data we didn't previously have access to. The impetus to collect new forms of data through this technological world comes up as well.
I think, for example, of CCTV, the closed-caption television cameras. I did one of my degrees in England at Cambridge University, and one became almost laissez-faire about having a camera around every corner. I know there are plans to install some of those cameras as part of the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
So technology is increasing our capacity to collect this information, and disseminate and distribute it on a global basis. On whether we need reforms that address specific technologies or instead rely more heavily on the core principles, and ensure we have a principle-based statute that reflects the broadly accepted principles, in many ways the latter is better, because predicting with any kind of accuracy what this technological environment is going to look like a few years from now is really just a guess for everybody.