Choose Privacy Week 2016

ALA's Choose Privacy Week is held annually May 1 - 7. For more information, see these previous TechBits posts for helpful links and resources:

• 2013 - "On the Topic of Privacy"
• 2014 - "Choose Privacy Week"

In addition to all of the great resources mentioned in those posts (can we talk about how much I still love the video of an amazing mind reader revealing his gift?!), I have a new privacy-related resource to share. To help create confident online interactions, San José Public Library (SJPL) developed the Virtual Privacy Lab, a free, encrypted online learning tool for all libraries to share with patrons. The lab includes content that was also professionally translated in Spanish and Vietnamese and a page with information about how the library manages patrons' privacy.

SCLS-supported public PCs have many privacy measures in place to help keep patrons safe, some of which include:

• anti-virus software
• disk-locking software so any patron data (downloads, browser history, etc) saved to the PC is cleared with a reboot
• Firefox and Chrome run in private browsing mode, which allows a person to browse the Web without storing local data that could be retrieved at a later date (this helps protect patrons who don't restart the PC after they're done)
• automatic weekly software updates so programs are running at the most current version
• network protections so a patron on one computer cannot access another user's computer
• (subscribing libraries) an automatic reboot to clear a patron's data when a patron logs out of their MyPC session 

For maximum privacy, an SCLS-supported public PC should always be restarted after the patron has finished using it to remove any personal data and browsing history.

Comments

[Cheryl]

Might I add that it is part of the library's and librarians' jobs to protect patron privacy, even from law enforcement officials, without the proper identification, and court order. See http://www.scls.info/management/law/enforcement/police.html
(Caveat, I notice that the link to the sample confidentiality policy no longer works.)