H. Hampson's List: Digital Rights and Schools CA

the C-21 Committee of the Canadian School Boards Association supports a continued and collaborative transformation of the Canadian public education system to incorporate 21st century learning skills, preparing Canadian youth for the future. Below is a curated list of news and resources. Click the "Follow" button to create a free account and be updated by email when new articles are added.

A digital security policy is a critical element in developing a comprehensive security strategy (Alberta Education, 1999a, p.7). More often than not, security is compromised due to people’s actions rather than a failure of technologies. Such policy provides an understanding of ownership of responsibility, a vehicle for high-level consideration of security issues and a means of ensuring all members in the organization (students and employees) understand steps to best ensure safety and security.

Digital law refers to legal requirements, legal decisions and ethics that relate to digital environments. Digital law can directly affect students in classrooms, employees and organizations as a whole. Some of the legal developments in Canadian law have proven evolutionary. As Horton and Thomson (2008) note in their description of Canadian law, Canada has chosen to emphasize and promote self-regulation over extensive legislation. Public awareness and education have been the tools chosen to promote child and family safety. The authors observe that the Canadian approach to legislative references may be summed up as, “If it is illegal offline, it is illegal online” (p. 63).

Traditional government responses to online hate have been to police cyberspace as an extension of the state's territory, ignoring the online/offline divide.

It is not always easy to discern when hateful content on the Internet crosses the line from being offensive to illegal. The line between hate speech and free speech is a thin one, and different countries have different levels of tolerance. The line is even thinner in digital environments where hateful comments posted lawfully in one country can be read in other countries where they may be deemed unlawful.

The Responding to Online Hate guide assists law enforcement personnel, community groups and educators in recognizing and countering hateful content on the Internet – especially as it pertains to youth.

Intellectual property
Anything that comes into being through invention or artistic creation. When an intellectual property is also real property, it is possible to own one but not the other – so that owning a painting (real property right) does not automatically give you the right to make copies of it (intellectual property right).