Resource

Privacy & Surveillance

This lesson was developed by Ellen Dubinsky, University of Arizona; Michele Gibney, University of the Pacific; Molly Rainard, Auraria Library; and Scott Schmucker, Florida State University.

Approximate time to complete: 8-10 hours

Learning Objectives

  • Articulate issues and concerns about user privacy and surveillance in licensing agreements
  • Apply user privacy protections within contracts

Even though the American Library Association identifies intellectual freedom and privacy as core values of librarianship, there is growing concern that libraries are losing the ability to uphold those values as an increasing volume of library materials is licensed rather than purchased. Patron privacy is at risk from major library vendors – both from those that are divisions of corporations that also engage in data brokering, such as Elsevier (part of RELX) and Thomson Reuters, and from vendors that work with third parties that access and capture user data. This raises ethical concerns particularly about confidentiality and privacy since data about our library users are at risk of being shared or sold to third parties. The ability of libraries’ to protect user data and limit exploitation of that data has diminished.

This lesson provides information, tools, and strategies to use as you prepare to negotiate for strong privacy protection language in your library vendor licensing agreements. 

Table of Contents

DO: Pre-test Assessment

Download Pre-Test Assessment (download .docx file) (download .pdf file) so that you may save your answers and compare to the answer key linked at the bottom of this lesson. 

WATCH, LISTEN, READ

The following resources provide background information about the potential harm of data brokering (the sale of personal data to third parties). They also provide more general details about library privacy, vendor privacy practices, and how our affected communities and libraries are reacting to these vendor practices.

We suggest that you spend at least 3 or 4 hours engaging with some of the readings, websites, podcasts, and videos below.

Videos 

Podcasts

Readings

  • Overviews/Quick Reads:
  • Deeper Dives:

Concerns about Data Brokers

While there are certainly legitimate and desired outcomes resulting from user data shared between vendors (e.g., sharing anonymized customer data to improve targeted advertising across platforms or using location data with transportation apps to optimize route planning), there are many more dangerous and detrimental possibilities:

Impact on and Responses from Library User Communities

When library user communities become aware of the invasive practices and demonstrated risks resulting from the collection, selling, and sharing of user data, the reaction is often swift and determined. (The documents below are all brief.)

  • Students
  • Faculty

Supporting Value-based Negotiations

When negotiating with vendors, it’s helpful to have existing university or library policies or state statutes that justify your negotiation position. Non-disclosure agreements facilitate transparency and fairness among libraries negotiating for information resources. If you have a policy which prohibits agreeing to a Non-disclosure or confidentiality clauses (NDAs), you can rightfully insist such clauses be deleted from a vendor agreement.   

  • Preferred practice guidance from library support organizations:
  • Examples of university library NDA policies:

DO: Review and Practice Activities

The Privacy Language Primer and Negotiation Examples (#1 and #2 below) are adapted from actual vendor contracts and negotiation exchanges between vendors and libraries. They provide learners with realistic expectations for privacy term negotiations and as such, each activity includes follow-up questions designed to probe the nuances of the negotiation outcome and to facilitate understanding of how to make progress in privacy contract language negotiations. 

Activities #3-7 offer a mix of assessment and policy development tools to enhance your library’s privacy framework. You’ll find guidance on evaluating vendor cybersecurity and website data privacy, auditing vendor policies using the Library Freedom Project’s toolkit, and crafting a robust data privacy policy tailored to your library’s needs. For example, using the tools in Measuring Library Vendor Cyber Security (#3)  and Assessing Data Privacy on a Vendor Website (#4), it’s possible to assess vendor compliance with the terms of the license agreement. The vendor can then be shown any tangible evidence that they may be in violation of the agreement. Finally, Group Activities and Discussion (#7) prompts facilitate collaborative learning and knowledge sharing.

Due to the nature of negotiations, vendors may not always accept a library’s preferred terms, necessitating further negotiation until agreement is reached. Circumstances specific to your library at the time of negotiation will affect whether you continue to negotiate or reach agreement on the terms. However, there are likely an array of terms under negotiation for any given license, and there may be additional factors like pricing, time, faculty need, and budgeting to consider.  More pressing priorities can lead a library to concede points in negotiation, including privacy terms. However, it’s important to remember that the right to privacy, the right to seek information without it being monitored or capitalized, is a core principle of librarianship and efforts to protect the privacy of library users are important. The risks are real and the sustained attempt to improve licensing agreement privacy terms is the responsibility of the entire library community. Over time and with repeated attempts, vendors have been led to change their license language to recognize this important principle. The ultimate goal is for our library vendors to recognize and understand the value of the right to privacy, and to conduct our business partnerships accordingly.                                                     

DO: Post-test Assessment and Answers                                      

Revisit the document you downloaded from the Pre-test Assessment section, or download the document again (download .docx file) (download .pdf file), and read the questions and your answers over based on the knowledge you have gained during this module. Have any of your answers changed? When ready, you can download the answer sheet and check your responses. 

Helpful Tools & Readings

Privacy & Surveillance

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