Mathew Ingram wrote an interesting piece on Gigaom entitled Privacy is Hard Because People Change Their Minds. 

From the article:

“Why is privacy so hard? Sociologist Danah Boyd, who specializes in the way people use social networks, says in the latest issue of MIT’s Technology Review magazine that it’s because “the way privacy is encoded into software doesn’t match the way we handle it in real life.””

The article talks about “civil inattention”, which is roughly the personal equivalent of “practical obscurity“.   It means that when we are having a conversation in a public place, “people will politely ignore us, and even if they listen they won’t join in, because doing so violates social norms.”

The article goes on to say:

In other words, we all view privacy differently based on the situation we’re in, the other people around us and our relationships with them, our goals and desires within that particular situation, and so on. These things combine to create a complex web of competing pressures and incentives related to whether we keep something private or not: a web so complex that it makes a mockery of the various tools that most services such as Facebook use to help you manage your privacy.

Thus one of the reasons privacy is so complex is that it combines technical, business, cultural, educational, and behavioral issues.

As another illustration of complexity – and how privacy is about personal viewpoints and choice - take a look at this NY Times article entitled Technology Aside, Most People Still Decline to Be Located.  Location based services are all the rage now - such as Foursquare, and the recent Facebook controversy.  It talks about how many people are reluctant to share where they are – even if they are willing to share other information.

For the London Free Press – August 30, 2010

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The open data movement – the concept that certain data should be made available to everyone to use without restriction- is growing steadily in popularity.

An example of open data use is the eatsure.ca London restaurant inspection score site using data from the health unit. Another is the Next Stop mobile app that shows the actual location of London transit buses using data from London Transit.

The concept applies mainly to data held by government and public corporations. They have information from which the public can benefit and it allows individuals to use and present that data in ways that the owner of the data may not have the time or inclination to do.

It is similar to the concept of transparency, which upholds that government and business should be accountable to their stakeholders.

While the concept of transparency and open data are laudable, all types of information should not be freely available.

Privacy obligations prohibit personal information from being disclosed. And there are other things that, for various reasons, ought to be confidential.

Some information needs to be kept confidential for competitive reasons, and to facilitate frank and open internal discussion on various matters.

For example, negotiations or bids for a contract could get derailed if the details were disclosed.

Open data means we can’t rely on practical obscurity to filter things that are theoretically public, but in practice are quasi-private because it is not easy to access. Court files and property assessment information, for instance, are public, but it takes time and effort to get to them, thus in practice, limiting access somewhat. Attempts to put them online have resulted in privacy and security concerns.

Open data does not apply to information about individuals. The decision to reveal personal information is, for the most part, the decision of that individual.

Except where freedom of information legislation requires disclosure, individuals and organizations still are at liberty to make their own decisions about what information to disclose.

Open data is a good concept, and will result in information being used in new and useful ways.

The concept, however, is a movement, not an obligation. Those opening up data need to think about what information ought to be disclosed, and what limits are needed to protect personal, confidential and sensitive information.

Public transit locations, restaurant inspection data, and information about the status of public facilities are easy to justify making open. Each type of data needs some critical thought to ensure opening it is appropriate and does not violate legal or contractual obligations.

I tweeted this yesterday, but thought it merited more comment.  According to an article in the Washington Post:

“Betty “B.J.” Ostergren wanted to persuade Virginia to take sensitive personal data off state Web sites. To make her point, she created her own site and then posted public records that included the Social Security numbers of government officials.

Fanshawe College is putting on an eMarketing conference March1st entitled “Turning Clicks into Customers“.   The keynote speaker is Mitch Joel, author of  Six Pixels of Separation”.

I’m speaking at a breakout session on “Legal Issues for a Digital World” .

I’ll be commenting on issues including copyright, cloud computing, the Streisand effect, and social media and privacy.   

There are several factors that make digital law different from analogue law.  As I’m putting my presentation together, I’m realizing that the concept of  practical obscurity plays a big role in explaining some of the differences.

There is a video of Clay Shirky giving a presentation entitled It’s Not Information Overload. It’s Filter Failure (ht @JDTwitt from Twitter) .  The part I found most interesting starts around the 12 minute mark, where he talks about privacy. 

He says privacy is merely about the control of outbound information.  Before the internet and social networks the inefficiency of information flow was a feature, not a bug, when it came to privacy.  It was simply hard to spy on people.    (This is the concept of practical obscurity.) 

We have now moved from that evolved system to an engineered system where we must consciously deal with and control the privacy of our information.  Our mind-set has not evolved with this change.  His view is that explicit privacy protection doesn’t work, and we somehow need to make the control of outbound information flow work on a filter basis.

For the London Free Press – June 14, 2007

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Online access to public records brings a wealth of benefits ranging from greater government access to cost-savings and efficiencies. But access to online records must be looked at differently than access to paper records.

The protection afforded by practical obscurity is lost when records are put online.

Practical obscurity means often where paper records are public, few people look at them because of practical difficulties. For example, court records are public — but it is not common for people to go to the courthouse and look at files to find out what’s happening with the action of a neighbour. It takes time, few know how to do it, and there is an embarrassment factor. Put those records online and all of those go away.

There have been instances where court records have been put online, and the number of queries skyrocketed.

One theory is these documents are public anyway, so it shouldn’t matter. However, due to presence of sensitive, personal data, an increase in access to public records can bring potential dangers, including heightened risk of identity theft and frivolous snooping into affairs of others. It also increases the ability to manipulate information.

Privacy commissioners and courts have dealt with this issue on assessment rolls in at least three provinces. British Columbia in 1996, Ontario in 2006, and Quebec in 2007.

For example, in 1996, the City of Victoria provided property assessment information to the public through the Internet. The new service would allow the public to search the database by property owner’s name, address and roll number.

On the first day of operation, it received more than 15,000 visitors. Until then, the city had received about 25 calls per day inquiring about property assessments.

The widespread criticism that ensued focused on the unintended consequences, namely the privacy rights of property owners in Victoria.

The position of office of the information and privacy commissioner is public records pose a challenge to the privacy of citizens and, once in digital format, pose an even greater challenge.

Privacy commissioners are sensitive to the ability to search online, and the ability to combine information leads to risks to privacy that don’t exist when the same records are in paper form.

They have felt the need to limit searching by names, and to restrict the uses that can be made from the information. It may, for example, be acceptable to search assessment rolls by address to get comparable assessment info, but not to search through it by name.

We need to be cautious about putting records online that are available on paper. Thought needs to be put into the reason records are public and how they might be used differently online.

David Canton – For the London Free Press – October 22, 2005

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Google is in the process of scanning 20 million books into digital format and intends to make their text fully searchable on the Internet.

This ambitious plan is putting copyright laws to a digital-era test and is just the latest example where creative applications of technology challenge traditional thinking and the application of laws.

Google is scanning millions of books into its system to allow users to search them using keywords, much like we now do with items on the Internet.

Google says while entire books will be scanned, users will be able to see only snippets of text where the search terms appear. It will also provide basic bibliographic information and links to online booksellers and libraries.

Google claims its project is consistent with U.S. copyright laws, but some authors and publishers differ.

The Authors Guild, an organization of more than 8,000 authors, has accused Google of “massive copyright infringement,” saying Google can’t do this without permission.

(more…)

Many businesses underestimate the value of their domain names. Consider, for example, what would happen if your entire company’s email ceased to function because your domain registration lapsed. Or if someone else registered a similar name and set up an undesireable web site.

Businesses should carefully consider what domain names they acquire, and make their ongoing care and maintenance the responsibility of someone with authority. Don’t delegate it to the junior IT person, or a 3rd party provider who may have obtained a domain name for you.

Webnames.ca’s most recent The Server Room newsletter has a good article that explains this in more detail, and sets out how they should be dealt with.

It starts off by saying:

In a very short time domain names have gone from total obscurity to a complete necessity, especially for businesses. A domain name (or, more often, a collection of them) is a company’s face to the world-the way customers find them and research their products or services. Clear, direct and identifiable domain names are probably the most useful form of international advertising a corporation can possess. Accordingly, domains have become very valuable corporate assets.

Every business should read this.

Read the Webnames.ca article