Privacy is a particularly slippery and amorphous issue, about which people hold a wide variety of opinions and beliefs, particularly in the post-9-11 world in which we live.
Libraries and library workers think about privacy issues a lot - and want our customers to think critically about privacy issues, too. Privacy issues touch upon a universe of topics, some of which may not be readily apparent. Here are just a few to consider:
- Access to adoptee birth records
- RFID chips to track movement of individuals,
- Parent access to college grades (I have a hard time accepting this one as a parent of college students - particularly as the universities they attended expected me to pay my children's tuition and housing bills!),
- Email searches
- Dissemination of personal health information
- Cities using security cameras on the street.
Q: Who can, does, or should have access to information about you as a person, an employee, a parent, a child?
Q: Who can share the data that has been collected for or about you?
Q: How can the data be shared?
Q: When can the data be shared?
Sponsored by the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), Choose Privacy Week is an annual initiative inviting library users of all ages and backgrounds into a national conversation about privacy rights in a digital age. The theme for this year's Choose Privacy Week is "Freedom from Surveillance."
Q: Have you ever "Googled" yourself ?
A: I have. It turns out that there is other Grace Cordials - as hard as that may be for me to accept.
Some of the information I found online is about me and is accurate. Some of the information I found online is about me, but the information is inaccurate today. Some of the information I found online is not about me - but other people might mistakenly think that it is about me. Some of the information I found online is about me, is accurate, but nevertheless makes me a little uneasy about the information being there. Not because I've done anything bad, illegal or unethical (that I can recall, anyway) but just because I consider myself a fairly private person and I've been known to say "Nun yah" (i.e., that piece of information is "None of your business!")
Now you give it a try. Look for yourself online in a search engine of your choice.
Q: Where you surprised by what you found?
Q: Was there any information online about yourself that you consider private?
Libraries have been interested in maintaining the privacy of individuals. Beaufort County Library Board of Trustees adopted the American Library Association Core of Ethics years and years ago. It's part of our core values as library workers. Why? Because freedom of speech is meaningless without the freedom to read. Click here for handout explaining why librarians and libraries insist upon empowering our customers to explore, research, and make choices based upon their individual needs.
Q: Where are the lines drawn between "right of privacy" and "right to know" today ?
Individuals should think critically and make more informed choices about their privacy. Library users, indeed all citizens and residents of this country, should understand how government agencies and corporations are monitoring and tracking their activities, as well as how that information is collected, stored and used.
The major source used in the preparation of this entry was http://www.privacyrevolution.org/. Please explore the website - and think hard about where you stand on the issue of individual privacy rights.
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