Section 215, which became known as the “library records provision,” not only allowed law enforcement agencies to secretly monitor electronic communications emanating from libraries, it also required librarians to turn over patron information if requested and even imposed a gag order on those forced to comply, thus preventing them from telling anyone. ALA opposition to … Continue reading “Baseless Hysteria”?
A few days ago brought a minor news item describing refinements Google has made to the process to request the removal of links in search results that are “inadequate, irrelevant, or no longer relevant,” popularly known as the “right to be forgotten,” in response to a 2014 ruling by the European Court of Justice. Ever … Continue reading Forget Me Not
Secure communication on the web provides two important benefits: identifying the website authoritatively enabling encrypted communications between the user’s browser and the server that provides the resource Encryption algorithms transform the data into a seemingly garbled form that, if intercepted, cannot be deciphered. The use of a secure communication protocol (HTTPS) provides the best approach … Continue reading Protecting Patron Privacy
But in one sense, it’s already happening. In December 2015, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit digital technology rights group, filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Google for Education, alleging that the company is surreptitiously collecting data about students as they use their school-owned Chromebooks and education apps—data that they’re using … Continue reading Champions of Children’s Privacy
The panel included James G. Neal, university librarian emeritus of Columbia University, trustee of the Freedom to Read Foundation, and a member of ALA’s Executive Board; Abigail Slater, vice president, legal and regulatory policy, for the Internet Association; and Tomas Lipinski, dean of the School of Information Studies at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a member … Continue reading Should There Be a Right to Be Forgotten?
The internet doesn’t have to be scary. That’s the message from Erin Berman, innovations manager at San José (Calif.) Public Library (SJPL), and Jon Worona, division manager for technology and innovation at SJPL. American Libraries invited Berman and Worona to discuss the library’s new Virtual Privacy Lab, an interactive site that teaches people about online … Continue reading California Library Creates Online Privacy Tool
Gluejar’s Eric Hellman has been doing some volunteer work for the Library Freedom Project, which has launched a most worthy initiative called the Library Digital Privacy Pledge. The idea is this: If we’re serious about the values expressed in the third article of the American Library Association Code of Ethics (“We protect each library user’s … Continue reading The Library Digital Privacy Pledge
We know that intellectual freedom is a core value of our profession, but it’s easy to become complacent and lose sight of the magnitude of our role in protecting patron privacy. This may stem from the fact that there is now so much that is outside of our control, but that makes our role as … Continue reading More Important Than Ever
The Adobe Digital Editions incident last October was a wake-up call for many people. The new version of the Digital Editions client was transmitting data about the reading habits of users in a way that left readers vulnerable to eavesdropping. Adobe quickly provided a fix to encrypt the data during transmission, but the incident raised … Continue reading New Privacy Guidelines for Ebooks
At “No Place to Hide: Whistleblowers Expose the Surveillance State,” a program held at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco, Greenwald discussed the reverberations of his work with Snowden, the importance of privacy, and the failure of the mainstream media to hold the US government accountable for its actions. Participating via … Continue reading No Place to Hide
At the same time, ALA and libraries have been exploring additional options for empowering our users to discover and publish digital content, considering privacy and preservation concerns, and expanding the lens of focus to other forms of digital content. The most recent round of John S. and James L. Knight Foundation challenge grants intersects in … Continue reading Empowering Libraries to Innovate
Noticing this, a librarian calls up some local merchants and tells them that Alice might be pregnant. When Alice visits her local bookstore, the staff has some great suggestions about newborn care for her. The local drugstore sends her coupons for scent-free skin lotion. She reads What to Expect When You’re Expecting at the library, … Continue reading Toward the Post-Privacy Library?
