Your Right to Privacy!
This week is national Choose Privacy week. Have you ever heard of it? Many of you will say no. Let me explain what this is. Our right to free speech as well as our ability to communicate to each other digitally *read Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.* are vital parts of our everyday lives. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas says about the freedom of speech "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
We as a society revel in our ability to send and receive information instantly in scholarly, professional and especially personal pursuits. We put out an amazing amount of information into the digital world with the assumption that we have nothing to hide, or that no one can use it to harm us. What most of us don't think about is that there are actually groups out there fighting for your right to say what you want and be protected in that. One of the largest advocates is of course, libraries including the TVCC library. We proudly support and advocate for your rights to privacy and freedom of speech. Every year, libraries across the US join in Choose Privacy week to acknowledge this work and attempt to educate you, the public about your rights and potential violations of. To find out more, watch the following video or go to the Privacy Revolution website.
How does the right to privacy affect you? Share your thoughts with us here. The news story that has me the most horrified of late is the new Apple iPods and iPads which track your every movement and send that information straight to Apple. Unlike organizations such as ours, which cannot keep track of or share any of your personal information, private corporations are under no such obligation. Legally, they can retain and use any information gathered for whatever purposes they desire. What do you think about this?
We as a society revel in our ability to send and receive information instantly in scholarly, professional and especially personal pursuits. We put out an amazing amount of information into the digital world with the assumption that we have nothing to hide, or that no one can use it to harm us. What most of us don't think about is that there are actually groups out there fighting for your right to say what you want and be protected in that. One of the largest advocates is of course, libraries including the TVCC library. We proudly support and advocate for your rights to privacy and freedom of speech. Every year, libraries across the US join in Choose Privacy week to acknowledge this work and attempt to educate you, the public about your rights and potential violations of. To find out more, watch the following video or go to the Privacy Revolution website.
How does the right to privacy affect you? Share your thoughts with us here. The news story that has me the most horrified of late is the new Apple iPods and iPads which track your every movement and send that information straight to Apple. Unlike organizations such as ours, which cannot keep track of or share any of your personal information, private corporations are under no such obligation. Legally, they can retain and use any information gathered for whatever purposes they desire. What do you think about this?
Comments
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First, the software that we use to keep track of items that students check out does not allow us to keep any kind of history. It is not even there. So, if we were asked to present evidence of book choices, it would not be possible. The only person who can track on our system their check-outs is you, the student and that is only if you choose to turn on that feature of your account. The library staff have no way to go into and see or edit anything in your personal account pages.
Secondly, you asked about the Patriot Act and information seeking. It is against federal law that the College give out any personal information to anyone other than the student. This is institutional policy as well and TVCC complies with this. In the case of the Library, we also comply with Oregon State Library laws and the Library Code of Ethics both of which forbid us to even retain any of your browsing or borrowing information let alone share it. Even with a federal subpoena under the Patriot Act, we would have no information to share, nor would we feel obligated to do so. If you want to see specific information regarding our privacy policies, please view this page http://tvcc.cc/Library/privacy_confidentiality.cfm.