[Air-L] a question about privacy protection and copyright in Internet research

[Niels Brügger]

Hi all,


Just a short comment about the privacy debate, once again.

There definitely exist differences between national traditions on this issue (as I have maintained in previous emails). And these differences may (also) be identified as differences between scholarly disciplines and theories about why we keep things, for instance as datasets or in (web)archives, and how we should use them as researchers afterwards.

On the one hand, an approach which mainly is used within disciplines inspired by the social sciences where focus is often on acquiring information about individuals and/or groups of individuals, often 'sensible' information, and here one of the main concerns can be to protect privacy. And, on the other, the approach of archiving institutions who take their point of departure in the idea that we should preserve whatever has been made public, and here the main concern is to attest what was made public, be that on paper, as sound waves, images, or whatever. When people have made things public they have made them public, and the privacy issue is mainly about things that have been made public by someone who should not have made it public, for instance medical information put on the web by accident, private photos, etc.; and if it was illegal then, it's also illegal later and this material must then be protected in the web archive (however, a number of practical issues are related to doing this).

But the fundamental rationale for the cultural heritage institutions such as national libraries is that they shall preserve whatever has been made public. In the country where I come from (Denmark) this has been done since the 17th century, based on a legal deposit law, first print, then radio and television, and now the web (similar laws can be found in many other countries).

The fundamental distinction, at least as far as I'm concerned, is between scientific data and publications (close to Jeremy's distinction "published documents are not a matter of human subjects"): scientific data are created by researchers for research purposes and may need privacy concerns, whereas publications are - well, public. And if people don't want things to be public don't put it out there.

There may, of course, be difficulties in determining whether things are public on the web or not, but, in general, if everyone could get acces to it, it's public. However, the main challenge is probably to inform people that they actually publish things on the web.


Best,

Niels Brügger




------------------------------------------------------------

LATEST PUBLICATIONS AND PAPERS

February 2011
"Web Archiving — Between Past, Present, and Future", The Handbook of Internet Studies (eds. M. Consalvo, & C. Ess), Wiley-Blackwell 2011, pp. 24-42
Read more on the publishers website: http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405185880.html

April 2010
Web History (ed.), Peter Lang Publishing, New York 2010
Read more on the publishers website: http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?vID=310468&vLang=E&vHR=1&vUR=2&vUUR=1

January 2010
Website Analysis, Papers from The Centre for Internet Research, 12, The Centre for Internet Research, Aarhus 2010,
[ get an electronic copy at: http://cfi.au.dk/en/publications/paper/#a12 ]


NIELS BRÜGGER, Associate Professor, PhD
Director, the Centre for Internet Research
Department of Information and Media Studies
Aarhus University
Helsingforsgade 14
8200 Aarhus N
Denmark

Phone (switchboard)   +45 8942 1111
Phone (direct)               +45 8942 9226
Telefax                           + 45 8942 5950
E-mail                             nb at imv.au.dk
Webpage                       http://imv.au.dk/~nb

Profile at LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/1/50a/555
Profile at Kommunikationsforum [in Danish]: www.kommunikationsforum.dk/Niels-Brugger

The Centre for Internet Research               http://cfi.au.dk
The history of dr.dk, 1996-2006                  http://drdk.dk
LARM (Radio Culture and Auditory Resources Research Infrastructure) http://www.larm-archive.org