About Karen Eltis

Professor Karen Eltis is on faculty (professeure titulaire) at the Law school of the University of Ottawa. A past Director of the Human Rights Centre, Karen specializes in the impact of new technology on constitutional rights and democracy from a comparative perspective, with special emphasis on privacy. She served as Senior Advisor to the National Judicial Institute and has taught at Columbia Law School, McGill University, University of Montreal (Faculty of Medicine), and Tel Aviv University (Israel).

Fluent in French, English, Hebrew, Spanish and Romanian and proficient in German and Italian, Professor Eltis holds law degrees from McGill University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Columbia Law School (Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar). She clerked for Chief Justice Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Ottawa, Karen was a litigation associate in New York City, focusing on International Dispute Resolution.

Her research on privacy was recently cited by the Supreme Court of Canada (in A.B. v. Bragg, 2012). Karen’s latest book is titled “Courts, Litigants and the Digital Age” Second edition (Irwin Law, 2016); It was supported by a CIRA grant.