presented by Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, at the American Library Association Midwinter meeting, Boston, MA - January 9, 2016

1. A Set of Consensus Principles
to Address Patron Privacy Issues
The NISO Privacy Principles
Todd A. Carpenter
@TAC_NISO
Executive Director, NISO
ALA Midwinter Conference
January 9, 2016

2. ➢ Non-profit industry trade association
accredited by the American National Standards Institute
➢ Mission of developing and maintaining technical standards
related to information, documentation, discovery and
distribution of published materials and media
➢ Volunteer driven organization: 200+ members and
400+ contributors spread out across the world
➢ Responsible for standards like ISSN, DOI, Dublin Core
metadata, DAISY digital talking books, OpenURL, MARC
records, and ISBN
About

3. “III. We protect each library user's right
to privacy and confidentiality with
respect to information sought or
received and resources consulted,
borrowed, acquired or transmitted.”
Code of Ethics of the American Library
Association

4. But…

5. Publishers, content providers and
systems vendors are not libraries,
nor are they staffed by librarians.
They serve library patrons, but they
also serve other communities in
other ways.

6. We often envision this as a library
Leeds Library by Michael D Beckwith on Flickr

7. Libraries more often look like this
Servers, switches, Chris, and such on Flickr

8. Most Library/Information Services
Take Place in the Cloud

10. Not all privacy issues
are hacks
Not all breaches are
malicious
Not all data sharing is
inappropriate

11. (2005)

12. (2005)

13. (2005)

14. Weigh these risks against the
real benefits
that can be derived,
or service improvements
that are possible,
through usage analysis

15. What can we do about this?

16. Can libraries and service providers
develop valuable services that are
based on user activity data, or
improve existing services using
activity data, in a way that
simultaneously
protects privacy?

17. Can we build a framework to
protect patron privacy
that is based on consensus
that simultaneously recognizes
the nuances with this issue?

18. NISO Initiative on Privacy
of Patron Data
in Information Systems

19. NISO initiative generously funded by:

20. Goal: Establish a consensus
framework of principles that
proscribe how information systems
should respect the privacy of
patron data

21. Virtual Discussions
• Patron privacy in library systems
– Thursday, May 7, 10am-1pm ET
• Patron privacy in vendor systems
– Thursday, May 21, 10am-1pm ET
• Patron privacy in publisher systems
– Friday, May 22, 9am-12pm ET
• Legal frameworks for patron privacy
– Friday, June 19, 1-4pm ET

22. San Francisco, CA on June 29-30

23. NISO Privacy Principles

25. Preamble

26. 1. Shared Privacy
Responsibilities

27. 2. Transparency and Facilitating
Privacy Awareness

28. 3. Security

29. 4. Data Collection and Use

30. 5 . Anonymization

31. 6 . Options and Informed
Consent

32. 7 . Sharing Data with Others

33. 8 . Notification of Privacy
Policies and Practices

34. 9 . Supporting Anonymous
Use

35. 10. Access to One’s Own
User Data

36. 11. Continuous
Improvement

37. 12. Accountability

38. Glossary

39. What are the next steps?

40. A new NISO Project in 2016:
Privacy and Research Data

42. Development of a framework that explains the precautions that
data creators, repositories, aggregators and scientists should
use in creating, using, preserving, and providing access to
research data.
Definitions of key vectors where privacy issues are evident in
the ecosystem of data sharing and reuse.
Outline use cases where the privacy principles apply.
Identify key areas of variance in privacy laws or regulations at
national and international levels
Define of a set of technical metadata that can be used to
describe privacy-related information contained within a data
set, parameters for use, and description of where it should be
applied.
Advance adoption through an outreach & communications
Expected Project Outcomes

43. 1) Improving the understanding of the privacy issues that
relate specifically to research data
2) Support a worldwide dialogue about privacy issues
surrounding the sharing, combination, and reuse of
research data.
3) Reduce the risk of an unintentional release of
personally identifiable information through the sharing or
reuse of research data.
4) Reduce the potential risk to scientific discovery that
might be caused by the unintentional but significant
exposure of personal data.
Additional ancillary benefits

44. A free one-day forum
In-person and virtual participation will be available
In Denver, CO during International Data Week
September 11-17, 2016
More details will be released later this spring
Public Forum on Privacy and Research Data

45. This project is jointly funded by
generous grants from:

47. More information:
www.niso.org/topics/tl/patron_privacy/
bit.ly/niso_patron_privacy
www.niso.org/topics/tl/patron_privacy/

48. Thank you!
Todd A. Carpenter
Executive Director
National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
@TAC_NISO
tcarpenter@niso.org
www.niso.org