Is Privacy a Luddite Fig-leaf?
In this month’s Library 2.0 Gang show on the recent ALA conference in Anaheim, Char Booth fed back that one of the themes from the conference that she had picked up on was privacy.
Specifically around the area of patron (or borrowers as we call them in the old country) data, both personal and activity data from within a library system. There seems to be three shades of strongly held opinion.
The do-what-everyonelse-does faction promote the fact that people are happy for Amazon, Flickr, Facebook, and the rest to store and use their data to deliver a better service for them - so why should libraries be any different.
The there-is-data-and-there-is-data group point out that they are not talking about really personal data (such as birth date, phone number, social security number), but general information (along the lines of ‘an unknown 2nd year engineering student has loaned these books). Anonymous but very useful data that could add great value to the services offered by a library.
The expunge-any-and-all-data-once-it-is-not-absolutely-necessary grouping seem to think it is a massive violation of privacy to even keep a record of previous loans so that you could tell someone what the title of that book they borrowed last summer was.
In that final grouping I believe there are some who are clutching at the privacy issue as a way to slow or even stall the move towards social networking and other 2.0-ish influences that are changing the balance of interaction between librarians and their patrons.
It would be disingenuous to colour all those at the keep it private end of the debate with this motivation, but I do feel that there are some out there that think this way. How often in a conference session about the wonders of social networking, or one that points out the fact that OPAC results would be more relevant if you could use a student’s course information in the ranking algorithm, do you hear the ‘but you are exposing private data so it will never work‘ comment?
Let’s face it, in the broad grouping of opinions we find in the librarian community, there are a few who are not comfortable with things 2.0, and would prefer things to stay as they are. It is to these that others at the other end of the spectrum of opinion may be tempted to attach the label luddite, especially in these times when it is fashionable to espouse the virtues of using people data to add value.
There is much to be worked out as to the how, how much, by whom, for whom, with what permission, under what control, of the data held about the users of our systems, but I believe that some opening up is already starting to happen. Those using the privacy issue as a reason to hold back innovation in this area will eventually find themselves bypassed.
Having said all that, I don’t expect my local library to be sharing any of my personal information without my permission anytime soon. I would hope that sometime soon they will be using my borrowing patterns to help others with their choices; my clicks to help improve navigation through their software; my demographic profile to provide a better service to me; and possibly even providing OpenID verification from a service I trust.
Picture by wasabicube on Flickr
July 17th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Re: “In that final grouping I believe there are some who are clutching at the privacy issue as a way to slow or even stall the move towards social networking and other 2.0-ish influences that are changing the balance of interaction between librarians and their patrons.”
I find it hard to believe that there are folks out there (in any great number) who are trying to subvert the use technology in this way. I think these folks just put privacy first and foremost and so anything that threatens this (or seems to threaten this) is perceived as a bad thing. It’s not though, imho, that they’re out to get the tech (or that they care about the tech really) as much as they are just unwilling to let go (in any manner or degree) of the thing they value the most.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
One does not have to be paranoid to recognise threats to privacy.
In the past, no record was retained when a borrowed book was returned. In the case of reference consultations without loan, no record was even created of who had looked at what.
Now computerised circulation systems create and retain records allowing staff to find WHO has borrowed any book, and WHAT any reader has borrowed.
The ‘People’s Network’ Internet computers are sited so that both staff and public can overlook them and see WHAT every user is looking at. WHO uses these terminals is recorded and retained by the library, and everything users look at or input (including addresses and credit card details) is logged and monitored, often not only by library staff. With the outsourcing of much IT support, it can often be seen by persons who are not council employees. This information can be passed to outside bodies.
In 1966 a London librarian suggested that computerised circulation systems could be programmed to signal an alert if a reader borrowed a combination of books, such as ‘antiques+locks+stately homes+Bermuda’. The idea was thought laughable then. Have you looked at current British and US terrorist legislation lately? It is certainly known that US law enforcement agencies have demanded libraries supply information on the borrowing records of readers. It is not even known whether this has happened in Britain.
RFID technology not only allows an object (such as a library book) to be tracked as an item loaned (or sold). Where it is taken geographically can also be tracked … . Technology is advancing beyond Orwell’s nighmares.
Of course, some might be consoled by the police state mantra: ‘If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear.’
Those who choose to publish information about themselves on social networking sites are themselves responsible for whatever information they give away. Students have been expelled for revelations they have published on the worldwide web, not expecting the university authorities would also look at this!
Anti-technology? Moi?
October 12th, 2008 at 8:12 am
THis post really interested me and i’ve been meaning to come back to it when i had time and enter the discussion. I’ve finally listened to the Podcast and was really interested in wht she had to say. The above commenters seem to assume (again like the conference go-ers) that somehow we’re suggesting privacy is dead. when in fact the Podcast I listened to gave very insightful comments on the various aspects of the issue, noting that a lot of software already collects data discreetly, that the things done by certain commercial enterprises is absolutely not okay in the context of what a library can or should do, and that there are a lot of benefits to different applications able to share anonymous data in a useful way.
What Char Booth was saying, which I think this post slightly misrepresents, is that during the conference, every time a panel presented an amazing new application the first question from the audience was always concerned with privacy. Booth asserts that there are always ways to manage private information correctly with each new application, but that the conference audience were overly concerned with privacy issues to the point of eclipsing any discussion of the new applications’ potential.
This IS concerning.
Nobody stands up and says “yes but is it usable? have you done your usability tests with young and old to see whether they can figure out what you’re doing”
Noone stands up and says “Yeah but does it meet Accessibility standards? can the blind and deaf and physically handicapped use your tool or are you excluding them?”
THe reaction to privacy issues is markedly different to equally important issues that are generally ignored by the world at large - if librarians are claiming that only they will stand up for the world and care about privacy, then I have to wonder why they’re neglecting all the other pet issues relevant to web 2/0 applications.
Perhaps it is a given that developers will design a great usable interface? HA!
Perhaps it is a given that these new technologies will be made fully accessible? DOUBLE HA!
I think there may be some truth to what Richard says here, people are afraid of new applications, and pin that fear on ‘privacy issues’. I think this is a lack of education amongst librarians who need to understand that privacy issues can and have been dealt with responsibly, we’re not all Facebook okay? I think that people are misinterpreting their fear, I think really they see these new applications and feel they are going to be left behind in the digital dark ages of HTML while everyone else evolves with the new technologies into something unrecogniseable.