No Place to Hide
The implications of always being watched are scary. It's like 1984 all over again. However, many people don't realize what privacy they're giving up when they use technology. Who reads the terms of service anyway? I remember reading a statistic that claimed people would spend years of their lives if they actually read every word of every user agreement they encountered. So we don't do it, and we don't know what we're signing away.
There's no way to protect ourselves from this type of privacy invasion. Forbes and the New York Times published an article a few weeks ago about how Target was monitoring people's browsing on their website and were able to predict whether a person was pregnant based on that information. It scared people, but obviously not enough for them to do anything. After all, what can we do?
TIA and Data Mining
The same information that retailers use to track us can also be used to track terrorists. Many people agreed with this decision in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. However, once the government started announcing it could track data about anyone, people started complaining. It's a weird viewpoint to have.
The website doesn't include any links from after 2004. What has happened to this project since then? Has there been any follow up?
MyTurn: Protecting Privacy Rights in Libraries
It's definitely important for libraries to have a policy on patron records. I know there have been issues at the library where I intern about this. We had one employee who would talk to patrons' parents about their material history, which, while good intentioned, violates the library's policy. He was reprimanded several times for his behaviors.
I suppose it's also difficult if the library policy does not agree with the state policy. Which policy do you follow? It seems in the Brooke Bennett cases, the librarians followed the library policy and the police followed a policy they made up. Kudos librarians.
No comments:
Post a Comment