Month: November 2020

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Security Without Privacy

Powerpoint slide listing the types of data collected by typical web app logs, including timestamps, user behavior, biometric data, and geographic location.
Slide from the SNSI October Webinar

Academic libraries have been in the information security spotlight due to the resurgence of Silent Librarian. The collection of academic user accounts gives attackers access to whatever the user has access to in the campus network, including personal data. Attackers gaining access to library patron data was not the reason why academic library information security was in the news again this past month, however.

Protecting The Bottom Line

In late October, the Scholarly Networks Security Initiative (SNSI) presented a webinar [slides, transcript] that made several controversial statements and proposals. The one that caught the attention of the academic researcher and library worlds is the proposal of a publisher proxy tool to monitor user access and use of publisher resources. In the transcript and slides, the proposal included tracking behavioral data in addition to other personally identifiable data. For example, the publisher would actively track the subjects of the articles that the user is searching and reading:

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00:29:10.020 –> 00:29:17.280

Corey Roach: You can also move over to behavioral stuff. So it could be, you know, why is a pharmacy major suddenly looking up a lot of material on astrophysics or

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00:29:18.300 –> 00:29:27.000

Corey Roach: Why is a medical professional and a hospital suddenly interested in internal combustion things that just don’t line up and we can identify fishy behavior.

While there are other points of contention in the presentation (we recommend reading the transcript and the slides, as well as the articles linked above), the publisher proxy tool brings up a perennial concern around information security practices that libraries need to be aware of when working with IT and publishers.

You Say Security, But What About Privacy?

Security and privacy are not one-to-one equivalents. We covered the differences in security and privacy in a previous post. Privacy focuses on the collection and processing of personal data while security focuses on protecting organizational assets that may include personal data. Privacy is impossible without security. Privacy relies on security to control access and use of personal data. However, there is the misconception that security guarantees privacy. Security is “do one thing and do it well” – protect whatever it’s told to protect. Security does not deal with the “why” in data collection and processing. It does the job, no questions asked.

When security measures like the proxy tool above are touted to protect publisher assets, the question of “why this data collection and tracking” gets lost in the conversation. Libraries, in part, also collect behavioral data through their proxies to control access to library resources. Even though this data collection by libraries is problematic in itself, the fact remains that the data in this proxy is collected by the library and is subject to library policy and legal regulations around library patron data. The same information collected by a vendor tool may not be subject to the same policies and regulations – outside of California and Missouri, there are no state laws specifically regulating vendor collection, processing, and disclosure of library patron data. Therefore, any data collected by the vendors are only subject to whatever was negotiated in the contract and the vendor privacy policies, both of which most likely allow for extensive collection, processing, and disclosure of patron data. Security that uses patron data doesn’t necessarily guarantee patron privacy and could even put patron privacy in jeopardy.

Bringing Privacy into Library InfoSec

Academic libraries are part of a campus system and are one of many ways an attacker can gain access to campus assets, including personal data, as demonstrated by Silent Librarian. However, academic libraries are also targets for increased surveillance in the name of information security, as illustrated by the SNSI presentation. The narrative of “academic library as the weak link in a campus network” can force libraries into a situation where patron privacy and professional ethics are both compromised.  This is particularly true if this narrative is driven by information security professionals not well acquainted with privacy and data ethics or by vendors who might financially benefit from the data collected by this increased surveillance of library patrons.

Library organizations and groups are weighing in on how information security should consider library privacy and data ethics. This Tuesday, ALA will be hosting a Town Hall meeting about surveillance in academic libraries. DLF’s Privacy and Ethics in Technology Working Group and the Library Freedom Project, co-collaborators with ALA’s Town Hall event, will most likely add to the conversation in the coming weeks with resources and statements. We’ll keep you updated as the conversation continues!

In the meantime…

A small postscript to the blog post – one reoccurring theme that we come across when talking to libraries about privacy is the importance of relationships with others in and outside the library. These relationships are key in creating buy-in for privacy practices as well as creating strong privacy advocates in the organization. What type of relationship do you have with your organizational information security folks? Check out this short presentation about building organizational relationships to promote a strong privacy and security culture if you are still wondering where to start.

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The Threat Within

A headshot of Chadwick Jason Seagraves with text overlay: 'Anonymous Comrades Collective - Doxer Gets Doxed: "Proud Boy" Chadwick Jason Seagraves of NCSU'

People sometimes ask what keeps privacy professionals up at night. What is that one “worst-case scenario” that we dread? Personally, one of the scenarios hanging over my head is insider threat – when a library employee, vendor, or another person who has access to patron data uses that data to harm patrons. A staff person collecting patron addresses, birthdays, and names to steal the patrons’ identities is an example of insider threat. Another example is a staff person accessing another staff’s patron records to obtain personal information to harass or stalk the staff member.

Last week, an IT employee at NCSU was doxed as a local leader of a white supremacist group. This person, who worked IT for the libraries in the past, doxed individuals, including students in his own university, to harass and, in some cases, incite violence toward the people being doxed. As an IT employee, this person most likely had unchecked access to students, staff, and faculty personal information. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that he still had access to patron information, given his connections to the library and his IT staff position.

Libraries spend a lot of time and attention worrying about external threats to patron privacy: vendors, law enforcement, even other patrons. We forget that sometimes the greatest threat to patron privacy works at the library. Library workers who have access to patron data – staff, administration, board members, volunteers – can exploit patrons through the use of their data for financial gain in the case of identity theft or harm them through searching for specific library activity, checkouts of certain materials, or even names or other demographic information with the intent to harass or assault. The reality is that there might not be many barriers, if at all, to stop library workers from doing so.

The good news is that there are ways to mitigate insider threat in the library, but the library must be proactive in implementing these strategies for them to be the most effective:

Practice data minimization – only collect, use, and retain data that is necessary for business operations. If you don’t collect it, it can’t be used by others with the intent to harm others.

Implement the Principle of Least Privilege – who has access to what data and where? Use roles and other access management tools to provide staff (and applications!) access to only the data that is absolutely needed to perform their intended duty or function.

Regularly review internal access to patron data ­­– set up a scheduled review of who has what access to patron data. When an employee or other library worker/affiliate changes roles in the organization or leaves the library, develop and implement policies and procedures in revoking or changing access to patron data at the time of the role change or departure.

Confidentiality Agreements For Library Staff, Volunteers, and Affiliates – your privacy and confidentiality policy should make it clear to staff that patrons have the right to privacy and confidentiality while using library resources and services. Some libraries go further in ensuring patron privacy by using confidentiality agreements. These confidentiality agreements state the times when patron data can be access and the acceptable uses for patron data. Violation of the agreement can lead to immediate termination of employment. Here are some examples of confidentiality agreements to start your drafting process:

Regularly train and discuss about privacy  – ensure that everyone who is involved with the library – staff, volunteers, board members, anyone that might potentially access patron data as part of their role with the library – is up to date on current patron privacy and confidentiality policies and procedures. This is also an opportunity to include training scenarios that involve insider threat to generate discussion and awareness of this threat to patron privacy.

A note about IT staff, be it internal library IT staff or an external IT department (campus IT, city government IT, or another form of organizational IT) – Do not automatically assume that IT staff are following privacy/security standards and policy just because they are IT. Now is the time to discuss with your IT connections about their current access is and what is the minimum they need for daily operations. However, even if the IT department practices good security and privacy hygiene (such as making sure they follow the Principle of Least Privilege), any IT staff member who works with the library in any capacity must also sign a confidentiality agreement and be included in training sessions at the very minimum.

A data inventory is a good place to start if you are not sure who has access to what data in the library. The PLP Data Privacy Best Practices for Libraries project has several templates and resources to help with creating a data inventory, assessing privacy risks, and practical actions libraries can take in reducing the risk of an insider threat.

Libraries serve everyone. We serve patrons who are already at high risk for harassment and violence. Libraries must do their part in mitigating the risk that insider threat creates for our patrons who depend on the library for resources and support. Otherwise, we become one more threat to our patrons’ privacy and potentially their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

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Just Published – Data Privacy Best Practices Toolkit for Libraries

Welcome to this week’s Tip of the Hat!

Today we’re happy to announce the publication of the Data Privacy Best Practices Toolkit for Libraries. This toolkit is part of the Data Privacy Best Practices Training for Libraries project, an LSTA-funded collaborative project between the Pacific Library Partnership and LDH focusing on teaching libraries the basics of data privacy. This introduction into data privacy in libraries serves as a guide for both administration and front-line workers, providing practical advice and knowledge in protecting patron data privacy.

The cover page for Data Privacy Best Practices Toolkit for Libraries: A Guide for Managing and Protecting Patron Data.

What does the toolkit cover? The topics range from the data lifecycle and managing vendor relationships to creating policies and procedures to protect patron privacy. The toolkit covers specific privacy concerns in the library, including law enforcement requests, surveillance, and data analytics. We also get to meet Mel and Rafaël, two library patrons who have unique privacy issues that libraries need to consider when thinking about patron privacy.  At the end of the toolkit is an extensive resource section with library privacy scholarship, professional standards, and regulations for further reading.

This toolkit is part of a larger group of resources, including templates and examples libraries can use to develop contract addendums, privacy policies and procedures, and data inventories and privacy risk assessments. In short, there are a lot of resources that are freely available for you to use in your library! Please let us know if you have any questions about the project resources.

Finally, stay tuned – the project is going into its second year, focusing on “train the trainer” workshops for both data privacy and cybersecurity. We’ll keep you updated as more materials are published!

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NaNoWriMo: Data Privacy Edition

A Siamese cat sitting in front of an open laptop computer.
‘Tis the season for all things writing. Your cat might have some opinions about that… Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cedwardmoran/4179761302/

Welcome to this week’s Tip of the Hat!

Today marks the second day of NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. For years many aspiring (and established) writers spend countless hours writing to reach the goal of a 50,000-word manuscript. If you do the math, you would have to write about 1700 words a day to reach the goal! Novels are the primary genre for NaNoWriMo, but that hasn’t stopped others from taking the idea of a writing month and using it for other genres. For example, this month is also AcWriMo, or Academic Writing Month, for academics who need to buckle down to write that research book or article.

With November being the month of writing, why not join in the fray with writing about data security and privacy? Our recent Cybersecurity Awareness Month posts discussed the importance of interactive and engaging training, so the question now is how you can build a data security and privacy training that won’t put staff to sleep, or worse, demotivate them from taking proactive privacy and security measures to protect patron data. One way to create engaging training is to use stories and scenarios. Drawing from real-world examples is a start, but the challenge is turning that example into a scenario where training participants are invested in addressing the problems presented in the story. Here are a few tips to help you with the writing process!

Characters – who are the major players in the scenario? Staff person, patron, vendor, random person who comes off the street, the cat who keeps sneaking into the library building? Once you have the characters, what roles do they play? What are their motivations? Why do they do the things they do or think the way they think?

So many questions, even for a short scenario! Take a page from User Experience (UX) and create personas to help with the character-building process. Even a shortlist of who they are, what motivates them, what they want, and what they know can help hone the scenario narrative as well as introduce common types of motivations, knowledge/skill levels, and different types of threat actors or people that might face additional privacy risks to training attendees. 

If you need more inspiration for characters, may I introduce you to Alice and Bob and their crypto-friends?

Story – Your real-world examples or the case studies you learn from others are two good places to start. That shouldn’t stop you from exploring building scenarios from scratch! Or perhaps you would like to modify the real-world examples into a scenario that would be a better fit for the training you’re developing. One concept to explore for your scenario is threat modeling, or identifying potential weaknesses at the library (systems, procedures, policies, etc.), who or what might take advantage of the weakness, and what can be done to either avoid or mitigate the threat. The threat modeling process can uncover a complex web of threats and vulnerabilities that interact with each other. On the other hand, it could lead to valuable conversations with trainees about how one vulnerability can create a ripple effect if exploited, or how a threat actor isn’t always acting with malicious intent. Sometimes the most dangerous threat actors are not aware that they are putting data privacy at risk such as a staff person with good intentions sharing patron data without knowledge of patron privacy procedures. 

Visual aids – What’s a story without visual aids? You might not have the resources or acting chops to create scenario videos, but there are always pictures to give life to your characters and scenarios. Luckily, there are several Creative Commons licensed resources to choose from:

You can also search for CC-licensed photos on Flickr and Creative Commons.

There are a lot more you can do with building scenarios for your data privacy and security trainings, but these three areas will hopefully get you started down the path of becoming an accomplished author… of training scenarios 😉 Enjoy your writing journey, and good luck!