Privacy engineers are essential to both preventing and responding to organizational privacy problems.

Today's students will become tomorrow’s software engineers, technology entrepreneurs, and professionals in other fields integral to the digital realm. Their attitudes toward data privacy will shape the policies and practices that govern the internet. Society needs to better understand college students' attitudes, expectations, and behaviors regarding data privacy.

In this first of two parts, we go over some security steps everyone should be taking.

Such organizations often deal in sensitive issues, like mental health, addiction, and reproductive rights—and many are feeding data about website visitors to corporations

The California Privacy Rights Act comes into effect Jan. 1, 2023. But there's a 'look-back' provision on data collection that comes into effect Jan 1., 2022.

This is adapted from a presentation from the Julie J. Boucher Memorial Lecture on Intellectual Freedom for the 2021 Colorado Association of Libraries conference (CALCON). Content warning: police violence and domestic abuse. Hi. My name is Shea. I’m an academic librarian at the Auraria Library in Denver, Colorado. More importantly though, I’m a white, cisgender, heterosexual man. This means I’m given default creditability and authority in my job regardless of if I deserve it, and honestly, someti

Patron privacy, as articulated in the American Library Association (ALA) Code of Ethics, is a longstanding concern for librarians. In online environments, the possibility of tracking by third parties, usage of HTTPS/TLS to provide secure connections, and easy disclosure of a site’s privacy policies all have implications for user privacy. This paper presents new empirical evidence about these issues and discusses their ethical implications. Data about the incidence of third-party tracking, usage of HTTPS by default, and easy discoverability of a privacy policy or terms of service (TOS) were collected for public libraries across Canada and the United States. The sample consisted of 178 public libraries; members of the Canadian Urban Libraries Council and Urban Libraries Council. Several common commercial databases (e.g. OverDrive) were also examined using the same criteria. Results show that only 12% of libraries were devoid of third-party tracking, with Google Analytics being the most common third-party tracker. While libraries may support HTTPS under certain circumstances, it was found that a majority of libraries serve neither their websites nor their online catalogs (OPACs) HTTPS by default. Regarding disclosure of possible tracking, it was found that 58% of libraries did not link to a TOS or privacy policy from their homepage. Together with previous research on the usage of privacy-enhancing tools in public libraries, these results suggest that public libraries are accessories to third-party tracking on a large scale. Implications of this fact in light of library professional ethics are discussed.

Duties of data loyalty implementing ideas from privacy law scholarship are now under serious consideration by lawmakers in the US and Europe, but critics charge

The Connecticut Four challenged the climate of surveillance following 9/11, showing the nation that librarians would defend civil liberties.

This weekend marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in the US. Life changed in the US after the attacks. One of the many aspects of our lives that changed was the sudden erosion of privacy for everyone living in the States. One of the earliest visible examples of this rapid erosion of privacy was the … Continue reading "The Lasting Impact of The Patriot Act on Libraries"

On "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide."

Digital privacy laws help control how your data is stored, shared, and used by big businesses—but those protections vary wildly depending on where you live.

Profit-friendly data privacy laws in the U.S. are out of step with public sentiment and hinder uses the public supports, from reducing opioid overdose deaths to curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Web is still wrestling with issues we take for granted offline, privacy chief among them. These are steps The New York Times took to protect users’ data, and how you can too.

After being stuck at home for 18 months, it's tempting to use your work laptop for fun. But your employer may be watching.

The National People’s Congress (NPC) of China adopted on August 20, 2021  the first Chinese comprehensive data protection law, the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), less than a year after the first draft of the law was published.

China's data protection laws are in a period of development and change. On 21 October 2020, the Chinese legislator released the Draft PIPL for public comments. The Draft PIPL provides comprehensive