The Executive Assistant wishes everyone a happy Festivus season! It’s time to gather around the Festivus pole for the Airing of Grievances, in which we suspect there are many grievances to be aired given how 2021 played out. Nevertheless, a new year brings new opportunities and fewer grievances – unless you’re the Executive Assistant. There is the perpetual grievance of not having enough tuna in the office.
We will be back after the New Year. We have you covered if you need some privacy reads and videos to tie you over the holiday break. 2021 has been a hectic year in the privacy world, and while we covered a lot in the blog this year, there’s a lot more that we didn’t get to in our posts. Here are some of the reads that you might have missed this past year:
- The Thing that Gets Us to the Thing – Shea Swauger’s talk delves into the library profession’s problematic framing of and approach to privacy. Shea challenges the profession to reconceptualize privacy – “Privacy isn’t the thing, it’s the thing that gets us to the thing.”
- On Protecting Patron Privacy – The latest update from Duke University Libraries’ Data Privacy and Retention Task Force, including the publication of their final report, Priorities and Guiding Principles for Protecting Patron Privacy.
- What Does It Actually Mean When a Company Says, “We Do Not Sell Your Data”? – The Markup explores what this common phrase means, what it doesn’t mean, and how you can avoid being caught up in the false illusion that “we do not sell your data” creates.
- Understanding the Security and Privacy Advice Given to Black Lives Matter Protesters – While this paper focuses on data security and privacy practices and awareness in a specific population – novice protesters – the findings and recommendations are of interest for library workers who work with patrons through library programming or other outreach and educational services around digital privacy and security.
Have a safe and quiet rest of 2021, and we’ll see you next year!