David Flaherty is a specialist in the management of privacy and information policy issues. He served a six-year, non-renewable term as the first Information and Privacy Commissioner for the Province of British Columbia (1993-99). He wrote 320 Orders under the B.C. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and also pioneered the development of Privacy Impact Assessments and site visits as forms of privacy compliance auditing.As a consultant since 1999, Flaherty’s services for clients have included strategic advice on the management of privacy issues and of relationships with privacy authorities, privacy advocates, and the general public; conducting overall assessments of privacy compliance (privacy reviews, audits, site visits, knowledge transfer); preparing Privacy Impact Assessments; helping to manage and prevent privacy breaches; and developing on-line privacy training and other privacy risk management tools.Flaherty is a co-author of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act: An Annotated Guide (2001). In 2012 he prepared an independent report in the aftermath of a data breach at the University of Victoria, which is available
here.David has been a member of both the External Advisory Committee to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (from the Committee’s inception in 2004 until his resignation in early June, 2014) and the expert external advisory board for the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner since its inceptionin January 2011. He wrote for the federal office ‘Reflections on Reform of the Privacy Act’ (2008). Since 2000, he has been the Chief Privacy Advisor to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). He has also been a Director of MAXIMUS BC Health Inc. since its inception in 2005 as a service provider to the BC Ministry of Health Services through Health Information B.C.Flaherty began his involvement with privacy issues as an assistant to Alan F. Westin at Columbia University in 1964. Flaherty’s first book was ‘Privacy in Colonial New England’ (1972). In 1974 he started comparative public policy work in Europe and North America that led to a series of books, including Protecting Privacy in Surveillance Societies: The Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, France, Canada, and the United States (1989). Flaherty has written or edited fourteen books.
He is an honors history graduate of McGill University (1962) and has an MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University. His teaching career, from 1965 to 1993, included Princeton University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Western Ontario, where he was professor of history and law from 1972 to 1999 and is now professor emeritus. He was the first director (1984-89) of its Centre for American Studies. He has held fellowships and scholarships at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and Georgetown Universities. In 1992-93 Flaherty was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC and a Canada-US. Fulbright Scholar in Law. Flaherty was an adjunct professor in political science at the University of Victoria from 1999 to 2006.
Flaherty has been president of Pacific Opera Victoria since 2010. He is also an Honorary Life Member of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. In June, 2013 the Awards Dinner of the Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) in Washington, DC honored Flaherty with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on privacy protection. On National Philanthropy Day in 2012, the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Vancouver Island honored him with a “Generosity of Spirit Award” in recognition of his outstanding commitment to philanthropy.
