Advocates Say Librarians Have Crucial Rule To Preserve Privacy

Norman Oder -- Library Journal, 07/01/2008

• No “information self-determination” in the U.S.
• Doctorow: information architecture is politics
• Vendors could create systems that protect privacy but give more to patrons

In one sector of libraryland, some thinkers believe that the library profession’s well-grounded concern with patron privacy and confidentiality has hindered the provision of personalized services users have come to expect—and accede to—from companies like Amazon.com. In the larger scheme of things, however, librarians and libraries may play a crucial role in guarding against a steady societal erosion of privacy. 

That was the theme of “Privacy: Is It Time for a Revolution?” a program Sunday sponsored by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (ALA OIF), likely one of the most-blogged events at the ALA annual conference in Anaheim, CA. (See for example Loose Cannon Librarian Kate Sheehan and Shifted Librarian Jenny Levine for blow-by-blow coverage.) It's part of a new Soros Foundation-funded effort; here's the Privacy Revolution survey.

(Check the LJ 2008 ALA Annual Conference page for more live coverage.)

Do people care?
Panelists made a compelling case that too many people don’t care about privacy, and that librarians should care, and that the United States does too little to set a baseline.

Dan Roth, an editor at Wired and veteran business journalist, noted that privacy has “really never come up” in a dozen years of coverage. Even when Time Warner lost its employees’ private information, those affected “were disturbed for about a day,” a sign, he suggested, of the difficulty of getting journalists to write about the issue.

While the search company Ask.com tried to attract users by stressing privacy protections, it got no traction. Meanwhile, as people use free services such as web-based email, he suggested, companies will compete by gathering ever more information about their users. While “it all looks sort of hopeless,” Roth pointed out that it’s possible to change societal views, noting the turnabout on green issues.

More protections in Europe
Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and a former librarian, said that in the United States we lack a term for what the Germans call it “information self-determination.” European countries have more comprehensive privacy laws, while “we have a Swiss cheese approach, and there are lots of holes.”
 
Indeed, she said, “Without an omnibus privacy protection policy, most privacy policies are not really privacy polices, they’re disclosure policies.”

Architecture matters
Author, blogger, and activist Cory Doctorow, author of the new YA novel Little Brother (Tor Teen), said the issue should be decided by policy, not technology. Software pioneer Mitch Kapor, he noted, says (information) architecture is politics, an argument for changing the architecture of our systems and defaulting toward greater privacy protections. “You can also lay the blame at the feet of the people who’ve established norms where we give up information,” he said, later adding that “the systems we build will determine the societies we build.”

“I think it’s a mistake [to say] that consumers don’t care about privacy,” he said, responding to Roth. “I think there are many businesses that have cynically manipulated the playing field.”

Doctorow scoffed at those who suggest that privacy protections would be too costly, noting that no one now complains that seatbelts, windshields, and brakes raise the price of cars. “It’s not the market that corrects it, it’s the government that corrects it,” he said.

Moving forward
While many vendors are retreating from DRM (digital rights management), libraries “may be last bastion of DRM,” he said. “It constitutes a fine-grain form of surveillance … I’d go so far to say that libraries have a moral duty to boycott such technologies.”

The erosion of privacy, Roth suggested, could lead to a society where exposure of health records affect our chances for health insurance, jobs, and even marriage licenses. Givens noted that companies now mine social networks to learn more about potential hires. Doctorow pointed to the ubiquity and permanence of the World Wide Web: “The Internet will never unlearn what Paris Hilton’s genitals look like.”

While we do have a right of access to credit reports, Givens noted that there’s no “right of access to your information profile,” an effort that failed in the California Legislature.

Doctorowy suggested use of various technologies and tricks to mask your trails, such as a site that allows fake log-ins and emails good for only a week. He suggested that, just as the Prius dashboard monitor explains the car’s mileage use, computers and web browsers could more explicitly show what users are disclosing.

The role of libraries
During the Q&A, one librarian pointed out some patrons think librarians “think we’re being big jerks” by limiting users access to even their own borrowing histories. Doctorow said there should be technical solutions: “It’s utterly conceivable, if there is demand, that vendors can allow patrons to keep track of what they’ve done without allowing you to keep track of what they’ve done.”

For more on the tension between library practices, patron expectations, and technology, see the video interview below with Jessamyn West of Librarian.net.