Four Experts Weign In On the Loss of Online Privacy
Last week, the Wall Street Journal asked four privacy experts to weigh in on the threat posed by the loss of online privacy by social networking, behavioral tracking of online behavior, and government surveillance. The panelists included Stewart Baker, former assistant secretary for Homeland Security; danah boyd, a senior researcher at Microsoft who has worked extensively with young people; Jeff Jarvis, an associate professor of journalism at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism; and Chris Soghoian, a fellow at the Open Society Institute.
danah boyd and Jeff Jarvis have now made the complete text of their remarks available:
danah boyd, Debating Privacy In a Networked World for WSJ
Jeff Jarvis, Debate on Privacy: The Fulller Text
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Google Books and Reader Privacy
Universal online access to search the full text of all the world’s books—it’s a vision that speaks to the heart of libraries’ mission to connect people with ideas. The Google Books Library Project has a noble goal—“to work with publishers and libraries to create a comprehensive, searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages that helps users discover new books and publishers discover new readers.“
What could go wrong?
Plenty, as it turns out.
Google was sued by a group of publishers and authors to address copyright and other intellectual property issues, and the resulting proposed legal agreement—the Google Books Settlement—outlines the terms under which Google will be able to provide access to the 7 million books it has already scanned, and the millions more it will make available in the future. For more information on the settlement, including wonderful summaries that help simplify this very complex document, see the GBS page created by ALA’s Washington Office.
One of the most significant issues with the Google Books project is reader privacy, which is not addressed in the settlement. In a library, readers can browse anonymously and the privacy of library records is protected by state confidentiality laws, library policies, and the shared ethical framework of librarians. How will Google protect reader privacy?
In response to concerns from the library community, privacy activists, and others, Google has released a privacy policy specific to its Google Books service, which addresses many of the issues that have been raised. It’s a great start, but does it go far enough in ensuring that readers’ First Amendment rights aren’t chilled by the potential for monitoring and surveillance?
The Google Books Settlement impacts the rights of publishers, booksellers, libraries, authors, Google itself, and—most significantly, yet perhaps least considered—the rights of consumers and readers of digital books. Libraries and privacy advocates will continue to follow this situation and to fight for the privacy rights of all readers.
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Expectations of Privacy
Do you have an "expectation of privacy"? The term doesn't just refer to your attitude about your personal information, however. In the legal realm, it's a constitutional test that determines the circumstances under which the government can invade personal privacy.
Bruce Schneier raises the issue of privacy and the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. In light of evolving technologies and social norms that encourage the disclosure of personal information, he questions our expectation of privacy in the digital realm. Is it reasonable to expect that our emails be private? Our phone calls? Our web browsing?
In libraries, privacy ranks highly as a professional value, expectation, and commitment. In fact, the American Library Association "affirms that rights of privacy are necessary for intellectual freedom and are fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship."
Schneier links to three legal scholars for different perspectives on the issue. Perhaps the most important point in the article, however, is his emphasis on "stating the - obvious to me - individual and societal value of privacy, and giving privacy its rightful place as a fundamental human right." It's this value as a fundamental human right that makes privacy such a pressing issue today - for libraries and beyond.
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