By: Quentin Smith
How do you trust an institution? Do you listen to their speeches or watch their actions? Do you trust them at all? Over the past months, the BUSRC worked to create a committee to address this issue, one built on its dedication to transparency.
In an honest conversation with President Grace Cordeiro, she expressed a strong position regarding the topic, stating that: “Transparency should be the default. We’ve seen at every level, though, that it’s not.” She specifically mentioned the chaos of the SAAQclic system, and the work of the independent journalist Isaac Peltz, who makes TikTok videos about the lack of access to information by request when it comes to politicians’ property holdings.
Photo courtesy of Anthony Ouellet
Cordeiro also didn’t shy away from the SRC’s own failings, discussing the difficulties of the smaller organization, seeing as much of their own website’s information still needs to be updated. This has led to multiple proposals being brought forward about more regular financial updates, but also the motion to create the Student Engagement and Transparency Ad Hoc Committee. “It’s just getting off the ground this semester, and I’m hopeful it will strengthen both our transparency and our relationship with students”, she said about the new committee.
Cordeiro states that much of this is due to the new governance structure and bylaws adopted 2 years ago. While many Québec student unions have a VP of Finance, the BUSRC has taken the approach of having the Executive Director, a position not elected by students, present a budget to the board. Cordeiro wants to implement more frequent financial update reports and a clearer fee breakdown, as both are currently not up to date.
Is mass surveillance making us transparent?
But how do organizations try to gain the same clarity on us? The concept of mass surveillance has become common knowledge. While some believe it can have benefits, many also believe it is a sign of potential danger.
Québec’s provincial government has worked against the implementation of further information gathering for such purposes; for example, in 2021, they investigated Clearview AI, an AI platform that illegally gathered information by using social media, databases, and other online sources, which led to regulatory actions to further protect the privacy of Québec residents, but these protections have not stopped everything; one of the largest new trends in this field of surveillance is Automatic License Plate Readers, or as you may know them: Flock cameras.
In her conversation with the Campus, not trying to make her position, the board’s president personally said this: “I will be honest that I have concerns about technologies like this. Particularly around consent, privacy, data sovereignty, and accountability. Who holds the data, how long is it kept, who is it shared with, and whether the people affected ever have a say.”
She went on to discuss how this has already been seen with consumer technology such as the many cases against Google, Apple, and even the Tim Hortons app. Cordeiro spoke further on what that means for technology as a whole, stating that: “…any institution adopting tools like these needs to have very thorough controls and policies in place, and transparency about what accountability measures they have to protect users, consumers, and anyone else the technology will engage with or impact.
All of this is a clear warning sign for institutions such as Bishop’s and other universities to be careful; as the reward to share information on students becomes more tempting, the need for protections and transparency to be the default seems more important than ever.
