Comments on: Weakening of Online Privacy at Libraries

By: caleb

caleb — Mon, 21 May 2007 23:47:53 +0000

I\’m seeing that it takes more resources to preserve privacy than it does to let it slip away.

You create the policy, you develop the trust with the community that you will follow the policy (ie deleting logs, or not keeping them to begin with), and the relationship with information technologists and policymakers to be sure it is correctly implemented.

Balance that against more people needing access to the internet than you have computers to give out, and some kind of management system – often automated – is the result.

There are technical solutions to this problem (that comes with their own new problems), but I think the key is developing the trust that the policies will be followed, and then making sure they are. In Dissent\’s post, the user has an uneasy feeling that the logs won\’t actually be deleted. How to mend that breach?

By: George T. Wolf

George T. Wolf — Mon, 21 May 2007 09:24:29 +0000

Certainly in medieval England the concept of community responsibility was firmly rooted in the evolving legal system.

Would you argue that the history of the American colonies was other than \

By: Michael Zimmer

Michael Zimmer — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:45:56 +0000

George: I'm not sure what you mean. Anonymity among early humans was the norm. There's a rich history of anonymity in early print culture. The Federalist Papers and Paine's Common Sense were originally published anonymously (or, at least, pseudonymously).

By: Dissent

Dissent — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:00:14 +0000

Thanks for the links, Michael. I’ll post a pointer over on Chronicles to here. And yes, I’ll follow-up with the ALA and post their response/comments.

By: George T. Wolf

George T. Wolf — Sun, 20 May 2007 10:26:20 +0000

Is not the concept of anonymity a relatively recent construct?

By: Michael Zimmer

Michael Zimmer — Sat, 19 May 2007 21:22:55 +0000

Be sure to post their response. In the meantime, I’ve dug up some relevant link from the ALA site that I’ll post above.

By: Dissent

Dissent — Sat, 19 May 2007 21:07:46 +0000

Precisely, Michael. And Chris’s comment to your last post on libraries notwithstanding, I think we may need to explore how privacy is protected when it comes to computers in public libraries, as there does not seem to be the same degree of privacy if one is required to produce an ID to simply use the computer and the librarian can virtually “look over your shoulder,” track all of your computer usage in terms of dates and times, and theoretically — if they don’t disable that feature or clear cache, link your ID to specific sites visited.

I hope that the ALA will have a good explanation and reassurance. I do intend to follow up and call them this week to describe what’s being reported to me and to ask them to respond.