Our Digital Legacy: an Archival Perspective

Our digital memories are threatened by archival hubris, technical misdirection, and simplistic application of rules to protect privacy rights. The obsession with the technical challenge of digital preservation has blinded much of the archival community to the challenges, created by the digital transition, to the other core principles of archival science - namely, appraisal (what to keep), sensitivity review (identifying material that cannot yet be disclosed for ethical or legal reasons) and access. The essay will draw on the considerations of appraisal and sensitivity review to project a vision of some aspects of access to the Digital Archive. This essay will argue that only by careful scrutiny of these three challenges and the introduction of appropriate practices and procedures will it be possible to prevent the precautionary closure of digital memories for long periods or, worse still, their destruction. We must ensure that our digital memories can be captured, kept, recalled and remain faithful to the events and circumstances that created them

Swaying Individuals’ Privacy Concerns via Amplifying versus Diminishing Counter Argument

Background: Though limited, research has found that individuals\u27 privacy concerns could be swayed by counter argument. This study investigated the swaying influence of amplifying vs. diminishing argument (i.e., counter argument seeking to increase or decrease privacy concerns) on individuals’ privacy concerns and the moderating influences of level of sensitivity and privacy-related knowledge. Method: Data was collected using online survey and respondents were college students enrolled in a Midwestern university. 215 students participated in the survey, resulting in 180 completed responses; two factors (survey competition time and response consistency for reversely-coded items) were used to screen response quality and 90 responses were kept. Data was analyzed using univariate analysis. Results: Results suggest that the swaying influence of counter argument depends on the level of sensitivity—the swaying influence is greater when individuals are presented with amplifying (diminishing) argument for a highly (less) sensitive issue/scenario. In addition, although the swaying influence is smaller for those with high privacy knowledge in general, it is not necessarily easier to sway those with low privacy knowledge. Instead, those with low privacy knowledge are more likely to get stuck or trapped in their existing privacy beliefs when facing privacy argument inconsistent with their existing beliefs, and are more likely to be provoked or stirred up when facing argument reinforcing their existing beliefs. Conclusion: Findings suggest that when processing privacy argument, individuals show confirmation bias and tend to “go with their initial assessments”. This is especially true for those with low privacy knowledge. When facing privacy related argument, individuals with low privacy knowledge behave the opposite of how magnets work—while magnets’ opposite poles attract each other and similar poles repel, individuals with low privacy knowledge embrace argument consistent with their existing beliefs and repel/reject argument inconsistent with their existing beliefs

Data curation for qualitative data reuse and big social research

In den letzten Jahren haben Innovationen bei Datenquellen und Methoden für die sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung zugenommen. Diese Forschungsarbeit zielt darauf ab, die Auswirkungen dieser Innovationen auf drei Praxisgemeinschaften besser zu verstehen: qualitativ Forschende, Big Social Data Forschende und Datenkurator*innen. Folgenden Forschungsfragen werden behandelt. RQ1: Wie unterscheidet sich die Kuratierung von Big Social Data und qualitativen Daten? RQ2: Welche Auswirkungen haben diese Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschiede auf die Kuratierung von Big Social Data und qualitativen Daten und was können wir aus der Kombination dieser beiden Communities lernen? Ich beantwortete diese Fragen durch eine Literaturrecherche, in der ich Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen qualitativer Datennachnutzung und Big Social Data identifizierte. Dann führte ich semi-strukturierte Interviews mit den drei Praxisgemeinschaften durch. Die Analyse identifizierte sechs Schlüsselthemen für die qualitative Datennachnutzung und Big Social Data: Kontext, Datenqualität und Vertrauenswürdigkeit, Datenvergleichbarkeit, informierte Einwilligung, Datenschutz und Vertraulichkeit sowie geistiges Eigentum und Dateneigentum. Ich habe außerdem fünf weitere Themen identifiziert: Domänenunterschiede, Strategien für eine verantwortungsvolle Praxis, Fragen der Datenpflege, Menschen oder Inhalte als Untersuchungsobjekte sowie unterschiedliche Schwerpunkte und Ansätze. Die Verbindung dieser drei Praxisgemeinschaften kann ein breiteres Verständnis der Schlüsselfragen unterstützen und zu verantwortungsbewussteren Forschungspraktiken führen. Datenkurator*innen verfügen über die Fähigkeiten und Perspektiven, um zwischen den Praxisgemeinschaften zu übersetzen und eine verantwortungsvolle qualitative Nachnutzung von Daten und Big Social Data zu unterstützen.Recent years have seen the rise of innovations in data sources and methods for social science research. This research aims to better understand the impact of these innovations on three communities of practice: qualitative researchers, big social researchers, and data curators. I address the following research questions. RQ1: How is big social data curation similar to and different from qualitative data curation? RQ1a: How are epistemological, ethical, and legal issues different or similar for qualitative data reuse and big social research? RQ1b: How can data curation practices support and resolve some of these epistemological and ethical issues? RQ2: What are the implications of these similarities and differences for big social data curation and qualitative data curation, and what can we learn from combining these two conversations? I answered these questions through a literature review, in which I identified issues in common between qualitative data reuse and big social research. Then I conducted semi-structured interviews with the three communities of practice. The research identified six key issues for qualitative data reuse and big social research: context, data quality and trustworthiness, data comparability, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality, and intellectual property and data ownership. I also identified five additional themes: domain differences, strategies for responsible practice, data curation issues, human subjects vs. content, and different focuses and approaches. Connecting these three communities of practice can support a broader understanding of the key issues and lead to more responsible research practices. Data curators have the skills and perspectives to translate between communities of practice and provide guidance for responsible qualitative data reuse and big social data

A systematic overview on methods to protect sensitive data provided for various analyses

In view of the various methodological developments regarding the protection of sensitive data, especially with respect to privacy-preserving computation and federated learning, a conceptual categorization and comparison between various methods stemming from different fields is often desired. More concretely, it is important to provide guidance for the practice, which lacks an overview over suitable approaches for certain scenarios, whether it is differential privacy for interactive queries, k-anonymity methods and synthetic data generation for data publishing, or secure federated analysis for multiparty computation without sharing the data itself. Here, we provide an overview based on central criteria describing a context for privacy-preserving data handling, which allows informed decisions in view of the many alternatives. Besides guiding the practice, this categorization of concepts and methods is destined as a step towards a comprehensive ontology for anonymization. We emphasize throughout the paper that there is no panacea and that context matters

Public Attitudes to the Sharing of Personal Information in the Course of Online Public Service Provision

The research focused on the following question: What are attitudes of different members of the New Zealand general public towards the collection, management, and sharing of personal information in the course of online public service provision? In order to find answers to this research question we used a qualitative research approach to empirically explore attitudes of a variety of New Zealanders in their service relationships with New Zealand public sector organisations. The research was conducted from March 2010 until August 2010, using the following research methods: • A review of international and New Zealand-based literature in the area of information sharing, privacy, and the management of citizen identity information in e-government service environments; • Semi-structured interviews with New Zealand public sector staff about the characteristics, conditions, and strategic developments in online integrated public service provision in the New Zealand public sector; • Ten focus groups with representatives of the New Zealand general public

Including but not limited to: How Brussels is emerging as a global regulatory superpower, establishing its data protection standard worldwide

Can the European Union shape global regulatory policy? If it can, what conditions exist? This is the essential question at the centre of this thesis. This thesis will employ the case of global data protection regulation and put the two opposing theories of realist Daniel Drezner and institutionalist Anu Bradford against each other. To answer the first questions data protection authorities around the world have been asked to complete questionnaires on principles in their laws and these have been matched with common European and non-European data protection frameworks. The data indicates that the European Union is able to shape global data protection legislation. Two answer the second question, the two theories have been compared and confronted with the results from the first research question. While both authors cannot be completely proven or disproven, taking only their central disagreement if the European Union can shape policy against the preferences of the United States, Bradford having answered this positively emerges with the data on her side