Tag: #ChoosePrivacyWeek

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Choose Privacy Week Recap

Welcome to this week’s Tip of the Hat!

This weekend was hot in Seattle, with temperatures near 90 F. While the Executive Assistant took this time to bask in this heat, we at LDH tried to find a cool spot in the home office to work, away from the Executive Assistant’s gaze.

Last week was a busy week on the Choose Privacy Every Day site for Choose Privacy Week! Here’s what you might have missed:

  • Virtual Programming and Patron Privacy – Jaime Eastman along with the ALSC Children and Technology committee give much-needed guidance for library workers who are moving children-oriented programs and services online due to the pandemic. The post goes into the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), and what library workers need to do to protect the privacy of children while keeping in compliance with COPPA. Bookmark the ALSC Virtual Storytime Services Resource Guide for additional guidance (coming soon!).
  • Protecting Privacy In A Pandemic: A Resource Guide – On Friday, May 8th, OIF hosted a Privacy Town Hall about patron privacy. While we wait for the recording of the Town Hall event, the blog post lists the main topics and resources covered by the panelists in the Town Hall.
  • When libraries become medical screeners: User health data and library privacy – Some libraries are now giving medical screenings to patrons who want to enter the library building. What privacy risks are there in collecting health data of your patrons? Read the article by LDH to find out why library workers might not be the best choice in handling health data.

Finally, if you have that one library privacy topic that you’ve been meaning to write about or if you want to share your privacy thoughts to a wide audience, Choose Privacy Every Day is looking for blog authors! There are some requirements for being an author for the blog, but this is a great opportunity to get your ideas and thoughts out into the library world.

That’s a wrap! Or, at least, the computer core temperature says it’s time to put the computer in the freezer. If you’re on the West Coast, stay cool, and for those of you who got snow on the East Coast, stay warm!

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#ChoosePrivacy 2019: Privacy and Equity

Welcome to this week’s Tip of the Hat! This week marks the start of Choose Privacy Week, hosted by the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom. We briefly covered CPW in our National Library Week newsletter, but we couldn’t pass up the chance to join in the festivities of a week dedicated to library privacy.An image of two arms coming together in front of a padlock, with the text "Inclusive Privacy, Closing the Gap" below it. To the right of the image is the text "May 1-7 Choose Privacy Week #chooseprivacy".

This year’s Choose Privacy Week is focusing on how privacy in libraries is vital for those who are otherwise targeted for surveillance and data-based discrimination elsewhere in the US. Library workers stress privacy as a core tenet of Intellectual Freedom; however, this focus can be very narrow with regard to protecting a subset of patron information from specific unauthorized uses and access, e.g. a government entity accessing a patron’s circulation records. This narrow interpretation of the role privacy plays in the library does not take into account the evolution of the role of data in libraries and in society. Data has taken its place as a critical tool in ensuring funding and continued operations. We see this evolution with the increasing prevalence of customer relations management systems, learning analytics, and identity-based services (such as RA21) in the library environment.

With the rise of data-as-valuable-asset, comes the dark side, or taking a cue from Bruce Schneier, the toxicity of data. Data has been used to target marginalized populations via surveillance and other means. How can data harm vulnerable populations? Taking a look around the Seattle area, here are two recent cases in which data collection inflicted real-world harm on people:

Another resource highlighting past and potential harms is http://neveragain.tech/. This pledge site started when the current US president proposed a registry of Muslims in the US. The page highlights some of the ways that technology was used against marginalized populations throughout recent times, as well as the harms that come with data collection.

Reframing the conversation about why privacy is important in libraries requires rethinking the field’s approaches surrounding privacy practices and policies. Privacy with regard to pursuing intellectual interests needs to take into account the social factors that come into play when someone from a vulnerable population uses the library. Many libraries market themselves as a “third place” or a place where the community can gather together for a variety of reasons, be it studying, meetings, programs, or even a safer space to spend free time outside of the home, work, or school. While data is useful in relation to building and maintaining operations that best benefit all patrons in the library’s third place role, care needs to be taken to ensure that the same data is not used to harm patrons as demonstrated in the cases above.

If you are looking for how to approach your privacy practices with an equity lens, you will hear from a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints during this year’s CPW. Maybe you’ll find something that you haven’t considered in relation to your privacy practices, or find an opportunity to be proactive in building trust with patrons. In either case, we’re looking forward to finding out more about how libraries can align privacy with equity during Choose Privacy Week!