Retiring Sask. privacy commissioner's advice on protecting your information in a digital world

Sarah Onyango · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 19, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

In an epoch wherever idiosyncratic information is progressively vulnerable, Ron Kruzeniski says safeguarding your backstage accusation is essential.

Kruzenski has served arsenic Saskatchewan's accusation and privateness commissioner for much than a decade. Now he's retiring, and said he's seen things alteration importantly implicit that time.

"We arsenic a nine person shifted from a full clump of insubstantial successful record drawers and record cabinets to ample databases and each kinds of organizations collecting our information connected our cellphones, connected our computers, everywhere," Kruzeniski said.

He cautioned that due to the fact that information is present being stored successful online spaces, hackers person much ways to entree and usage your private information.

"They recovered a mode of making it profitable and erstwhile they run successful a antithetic state that possibly sponsors their hacks and attacks, they're fundamentally protected from prosecution," Kruzeniski said.

In his clip arsenic commissioner, Kruzeniski published much than 1,230 reports and is regarded arsenic 1 of the astir good known autarkic officers of the Saskatchewan legislature. He said 1 of the things he's most arrogant of has been his quality to get answers to people.

"That's 1,230 decisions and it means that 1,230 answers were fixed to radical successful a comparatively abbreviated order," helium said. "I deliberation it's truly important for a nationalist body, you know, a municipality, a city, a ministry, erstwhile idiosyncratic makes a petition and past appeals to our office, that the reply gets retired determination arsenic rapidly arsenic imaginable and we've been capable to bash that."

'You don't person to click close away'

After witnessing a shift from insubstantial to integer records successful his clip arsenic commissioner, Kruzeniski's biggest proposal to radical successful the online abstraction is to deliberation doubly earlier clicking.

"Every email you get, each clip there's a link, each clip idiosyncratic offers you thing that sounds excessively bully to beryllium true, it astir apt is. You don't person to click close away, you tin deliberation astir it," Kruzeniski said.

He warned that hackers commonly get entree to idiosyncratic accusation done fake links that way them into our systems that past gives them entree to our information.

"Be careful, deliberation twice, beryllium cautious," Kruzeniski said.

As helium enters retirement, Kruzeniski would like to spot much authorities dealing with artificial intelligence. He said it's the close time for the authorities to commencement gathering rules for AI successful Canada.

"I deliberation arsenic a state and arsenic a province, we start. We request immoderate guardrails successful presumption of capturing the benefits of AI, but reducing the risks of it being abused oregon utilized against us."

He'd besides similar the timeline for however reports are delivered successful Saskatchewan to beryllium much successful enactment with what he's seen with different provinces.

"Newfoundland has immoderate precise circumstantial timelines that helps them get their reports retired quickly," Kruzineski said.

"We conscionable benignant of request a reappraisal and a balanced information of what we request for the adjacent mates decades."