Information Privacy
- What do you know about copyright?
- Who owns the work you do?
- Who can get access to your computer files?
Issues:
- Copyright applies even without a "Copyright" notice
or ©. Anything stored in a "tangible form" is copyrighted -
email, computer files, software, etc.
- Generally, laws favor employers. They may be able
to intercept or access any of your computer-based work without
your knowledge or permission. (Laws are not fully worked
out yet, but this is the direction that decisions have been
taking).
- Work you do for hire is owned by your employer. But things
you do using your employer's equipment (such as sending personal
email or freelancing) may also be owned or accessed by the
employer!
- Things may change as a result of some new laws,
trade with the European Union (they have different views
on privacy), and changes to online culture.
Additional challenges for public-use systems
- In libraries, schools, computer labs, and some offices,
computers may be shared. To maximize privacy:
- Provide a private workspace
- Post privacy and other use policies
- Make it easy to automatically clear the
Web browsers' disk cache, temporary directory (download area)
and history list
- Make it hard to reconfigure software with "real"
usernames and passwords (e.g., by write-protecting the directory
or file where a program might keep this information).
- Consider a 'reboot after use' policy
What you can do:
- It's relatively easy and cheap to encrypt your
data, including files on your hard drive and email you send
to other people. Consider doing this!
- Avoid using work equipment for things you don't
want your employer to find out about.
- All organizations should have clear policies on
data privacy
- All people with elevated access (managers,
system administrators, housekeepers, etc.) should have
clear knowledge of privacy rules that effect them.