Science Library Pad

Facebook and privacy in Canada

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has released their final agreement with Facebook, in which Facebook notably agrees to change the API to third-party applications, enabling much more granular control of the personal information you share with them.

News Release - Facebook agrees to address Privacy Commissioner’s concerns - August 27, 2009

(announced via the the @PrivacyPrivee Twitter feed, incidentally)

This is an issue that has concerned me for some time, so it's great to see it being resolved in a positive manner.

Here's a question I asked about Facebook in 2007, when I was blogging the OECD Participative Web forum

QUESTION: Hi, Richard Akerman from the National Science Library of Canada.

One of the things that I've seen in the discussion is we are talking mostly about silos, but Web 2.0 is about mashing sites up, about linking sites together, about crossing between sites and combining them together.

Not to pick on Facebook, but Facebook has a fabulous feature, which is Facebook Applications. However, in order for me to give my informed consent, I have only one choice. To use this application, I share my information with a third party.

I think that is a valid option, but the question, the broader question, the policy question is: How do we deal with privacy when we expect that sites will want to interlink like this, that people will want to connect their information like this? How do we control the spread of the information?

Are there technological ways to do that? Are there policy ways to manage it? If I share with a third party, how do I stop the third party from sharing on?

So I'm interested obviously particularly in the Facebook experience but the broader panel as well.

Thank you.

and here's the panel discussion that ensued - the cast of characters is Mozelle Thompson from Facebook, John Lawford from the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, and Gary Davis from the Irish Internet Data Authority, with Hugh Stephenson from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission chairing.

MR. THOMPSON: I think that question is there for a reason. I mean, when I say that, when it warns you that in order to use this application, you have to share some information with that application, it's because if you don't want to share your information with that application, you should not download that application.

One of the things, you are absolutely correct we have over 5,000 applications. And aside from the applications that are created by Facebook itself, it is very difficult to police every single other one for what everybody else does.

For example, if Amazon has an application that you can download on Facebook, then you are going to have to be guided by Amazon's policy.

That being said, do we have certain standards about data mining and other things? Absolutely.

We tell sites that if they want to create an application and they want to ask you for information, that's great. We are not going to give you information about our users. We leave it then up to the user to determine whether they want to use this application or not. And that has to do with a trusted site relationship.

MR. STEVENSON: Thank you.

John, I think you wanted to get on this, and then Gary, and then one more question.

MR. LAWFORD: The way you dealt with that in legislation, you just ask for someone's consent, right, and that should be the end of it. If you don't want to use that program, you don't consent, except that what you are getting for that application is they are asking for more personal information probably in your sign‑up than they need to to provide that application to you.

They've already got the fact that you have been referred from Facebook and now they are asking for additional personal information.

That's where we are saying that for a Web 2.0 type statute, whether internationally or nationally, you should be able to ask for the plain vanilla transaction. So you have name, address, if you need it, and I get my application, not all this other stuff.

MR. THOMPSON: That's a little bit misleading in the following sense: that is you are Amazon and you have an application on Facebook or some other company has an application on Facebook, if it's Expedia or Travelocity, they are going to need some information from you in order for them to do a transaction with you. That's your relationship with them.

We are not collecting that information. That third party is collecting that information. That's the purpose of the warning. Not because we need that information. We already know what we need to know because you are our user. You are absolutely right.

But we put the warning there so that if you are using a third party application, you know that they are collecting information about you. It's a benefit to consumers.

MR. STEVENSON: Thank you.

Let's give Gary a chance to intervene on this and then I think we have one more question.

MR. DAVIS: Just from a data protection perspective, I don't know the actual characteristics of Facebook applications and there could be anything else.

One of the principles is the purpose limitations. So if I give my information for one purpose, which is to sign up to that, the third party, then if they anything else with it other than the reason for which you gave it, then you would have a valid complaint to us as the Data Protection Commissioner's Office and we would investigate it.

Also, and again understanding the nature of the relationship that exists, if Facebook applications could be deemed to be handling the information on behalf of Facebook, well then there's a contractual obligation there. And one might say that a privacy standard would be that the contract that is entered into would specify between Facebook and whoever manages Facebook applications, that they may not use the information for any other purpose.

I would expect to see that. If you weren't seeing that going forward, well then that's a privacy point that one would expect to be articulated.

MR. STEVENSON: Thank you.

from OECD transcript

Library Support for E-Science - ARL Final Report

A challenge:

Whither Science Libraries?

What are contemporary library uses and needs
of the scientific community? Are subscriptions to
e-journals sufficient? The emergence of escience
raises important questions about the
services and infrastructure within ARL libraries
in support of science.

Libraries may, in fact, be creating obstacles to
emerging interdisciplinary models of science.
Branch libraries based on separate collections in
related areas of the sciences are cited as a
hindrance to multidisciplinary research at a time
when online access transcends discipline-based
collections.  Other recent behavioral
assessments suggest that libraries are often not
perceived as part of the evolving research
infrastructure in support of interdisciplinary,
team science.

There is a perception that science librarians,
more than ever before, need to be actively
engaged with their user communities. They need
to understand not only the concepts of the
domain, but also the methodologies and norms
of scholarly exchange. This level of
understanding and engagement goes well
beyond knowledge of the literature. It requires
being a trusted member of the community with
recognized authority in information related
matters. This new paradigm suggests a shift in
focus from managing specialized collections (the
“branch library” model) to one that emphasizes
outreach and engagement.

Many science librarians, of course, are already
doing this. There are examples of science and
health science librarians working with faculty in
teaching courses, participating in research
projects, and publishing. Are these models
extensible? Can we re-conceive the science
library for e-science?

Agenda for Developing E-Science in Research Libraries - Final Report and Recommendations (PDF) - Association of Research Libraries: Library Support for E-Science - November 2007

A way forward - Model Principles.  I must admit, when I was blogging for the OECD, I had a hard time grasping the shape of the conversations that were going on.  This set of model principles (based on a draft from Chuck Humphrey), from Appendix B of the ARL E-Science Final Report, provides a clear set of topics that research libraries should consider (I have trimmed some entries - see the document for full versions):

1. Open Access: Research libraries will support open access policies and practices regarding scientific knowledge and e-science.

2. Open Data: Access to open data is a movement supported by research libraries, taking into consideration the ethical treatment of human-subject data.

3. Collaboration: Research libraries will collaborate with multi-institutional, interdisciplinary
research projects by developing and supporting digital repositories for their research outputs,
data, and metadata.

4. Digital Stewardship & Preservation: Research libraries will have institutional repositories that meet international preservation and interoperability standards and practices.

5. Equitable Service and Support: Research libraries will work collectively to ensure that gaps do not develop in the levels of support provided across e-sciences.

6. Professional Development & Investment: Research libraries will develop the human capital to provide the range of knowledge management skills at the appropriate level needed by esciences.

7. Metadata Standards & Metadata Creation: Research libraries will spearhead initiatives to develop metadata standards supportive of scientific data.

8. There is no number 8.

9. Virtual Communities: Research libraries will contribute to the establishment of and
participate in virtual laboratories or organizations developed across e-sciences.

10. Sustainable Models: Research libraries will participate in the development of and contribute to sustainable business models for the resources and services essential to e-sciences.

11. Communication: Research libraries will participate in initiatives to increase wider
professional and public understanding of e-science contributions to knowledge and its
infrastructural requirements.

* The June 2008 OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy will be
considering a set of digital information principles, indicating a broad international interest in
developing principles for cyberinformation. (See
http://www.oecd.org/department/0,3355,en_2649_34223_1_1_1_1_1,00.html )

This gives me a great opportunity to connect to more information from the 2007 OECD Participative Web meeting in Ottawa.  You can read my blog postings about the e-science presentations, and I have been remiss in not pointing out the video (Windows Media) of the presentations (the session starts at 05:30 into the stream).  The presentations are in English (the introduction is in French).

PS For a more direct (and memorable) link to the OECD Future of the Internet Economy work, use http://www.oecd.org/FutureInternet 

Info about the ARL final report via Bev Brown, from asis-l and CNI Announce.

Blog for OECD Participative Web goes live

The blog supporting the OECD Participative Web Forum has gone live.  RSS feed, comments, the usual.

I welcome your feedback; its primary purpose is as a channel for you to interact with the event and the participants there, as well as OECD policymakers, so the more comments or questions you post there the better.

Also feel free to promote it on any relevant web sites, blogs or listservs; I know you all collectively know far more venues and people who might be interested in it than I can possibly imagine.  (Plus which I refuse to use listservs :)

Kieren McCarthy and I will be liveblogging the event in Ottawa this Wednesday, October 3, 2007, starting at 9 AM or thereabouts, and finishing around 6 PM (or whenever our fingers give out).  It will also be webcast live so you may catch a glimpse of me (probably with my hair sticking out at some odd angle, if past experience is any guide).

The tag is oecdwebforum2007, but Technorati doesn't seem to be picking up the blog yet (also as usual).

It's a bit of an experiment for the OECD, opening up in this way, so as I said in the blog itself, please be gentle.

Previously:
September 13, 2007  provide your input to OECD participative web conference

provide your input to OECD participative web conference

There will be an event "OECD-Canada Technology Foresight Forum on the Participative Web: Strategies and Policies for the Future" on October 3, 2007 in Ottawa, Canada, so in slightly under three weeks from now.  You still have time to submit your comments as well as to suggest blog links and feeds

---> Participate online <---

There will be 2 official event bloggers who will blog about the event during the meeting. One will be a representative from civil society (ICANN) and one will be from Canada.

Err, the latter would be me.  I think the blogging will be on an official OECD site rather than here.

UPDATE 2007-09-30: The blog has gone live. ENDUPDATE

The event will be webcast live as well as archived with transcripts.

There are already some videos submitted by participants, rather confusingly listed under "podcasts", which they are not.

There is an E-Science session in the programme (PDF)

Session 2 STREAM B
Research 2.0: e-Science and new ways of interaction in the science community
Chair: Walter Stewart, Walter Stewart & Associates Inc.
- Andrew Herbert, Managing Director, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK
- Bill St. Arnaud, Senior Director Advanced Networks, CANARIE Inc.
- Daniel Atkins, Director, Office of Cyberinfrastructure, National Science Foundation
- Ulf Dahlsten, Director for "Emerging Technologies and Infrastructures", Information Society and Media Directorate-General, European Commission

Check out

http://www.oecd.org/futureinternet/participativeweb

for more information.

I also created an Upcoming event and Google calendar entry and am suggesting the tag oecdwebforum2007

Bill St. Arnaud also provided a pointer a while back to the OECD report on this topic

OECD, 12-April-2007, Working Party on the Information Economy - PARTICIPATIVE WEB: USER-CREATED CONTENT (PDF, 888KB)

UPDATE 2007-09-14: I have made a Google Earth KMZ for the conference venue and hotels where the organisers have arranged room availability.  You can also view it in Google Maps.  I have indicated the location of Canada's Parliament as well.  It may be the only Parliament in the world where you can sometimes see people playing frisbee on the front lawn.  Note: Don't confuse the Government Conference Centre venue (the old Ottawa Union Station) with the Ottawa Congress Centre, located a block away.  Also note in some cases Google is not showing proper street names for downtown Ottawa at the moment.

Download OECD-ParticipativeWebForum.kmz

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