PeopleFinderPrivacy
From Katrina Help Info
UPDATE: JON LEBKOWSKY SAYS HE HAS THE BAYOSPHERE RESPONSE COVERED
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DRAFT OF PRIVACY STATEMENT
Privacy Statement
PeopleFinder is collecting data about missing persons and survivors of Katrina from various sites that were set up to collect informal posts by concerned relatives and friends. Those sites are inherently unstructured; our project will place the data into a structured format that is easier to search and use effectively to identify people and connections. The goal is to update statuses of those who are missing and hopefully reconnect them with their families and friends.
That is our first priority. It means that we will be gathering a lot of personal data and making it accessible via search, and this has raised privacy concerns. A couple of important points about privacy:
- This project is led by web professionals who understand the privacy issues and are attempting to address them as well as possible, but failing to provide public access to the data we've gathered would be detrimental to the goals of the project.
- The data in our database will be stored on a secure server at Salesforce.com, and will be less vulnerable to persons who might be data-mining for other purposes (e.g. spammers) than it was at the sites where we found it.
Task
- Respond to Privacy Concern post on Bayosphere Blog: http://bayosphere.com/blog/dan_gillmor/20050905/katrina_people_finder_a_worthy_effort
- Generate our generic privacy issues statement to post on our website
I'm working on this for the website. Maka10 17:10, 6 Sep 2005 (EDT)
Leader
(please sign up HERE to accept this task)
Context
Good points all. This needs to go to the marketing team. They need to get someone to engage in the conversation. Can someone go over there and explain that this information is already (mostly) in the hands of the bad guys.
We are trying to coordinate with people like katrinadataproject.com which has privacy focus so we can avoid some of the dangers.
Hard question. Hope someone tactful and thoughtful answers it. :)
David Geilhufe
Mini K.: My update: http://bayosphere.com/blog/tim_bishop/20050905/gave_money_already_give_an_hour_of_your_time_to_the_katrina_peoplefinder_project#comment-10063
On Sep 5, 2005, at 12:30 PM, Mini Kahlon wrote:
Jon (or anyone?),
any thoughts about this post? it may be a concern people have. it would be good not to leave this hanging on bayopshere, on dan gillmor's blog http://bayosphere.com/blog/dan_gillmor/20050905/katrina_people_finder_a_worthy_effort which will be picked up.
"I'm sorry Dan, but I've just been to that website to volunteer doing data entry and I'm very alarmed by what these folks are doing. There is no need whatsoever for them to create something containing the amount of personal details they're asking us to enter in one place. They're just doing cyber-criminals' work for them.All they need to do is link to the original post. I know that means two steps instead of one for those who are searching for information..."
You (or someone) could just respond on bayoshere, or I can - or whatever you think is best.
The poster is a good member of the community, not just riling things up to be difficult. She's obviously really concerned. I've already shared that my experience has been that its more about connecting up someone's name who's lost, with the contact info for someone looking for them so doesn't seem like too much detailed info.
Mini
