Privacy issues and solutions

[Peter Sutton]

Hi all,

I'm currently in the middle of designing tools that aim to improve the
tracing services offered by relief organisations in situations that
require a humanitarian response. I'm currently a little confused about
the privacy issue.

Some tracing services such as the Red Cross's International Tracing
and Messaging Service operates with strict regard for privacy.
However, other tracing services, such as Google Person Finder and the
ICRC's Family Links, are completely open and operate with minimum/no
regard for privacy (I'm not saying either of these approaches is
(in)correct). I want to understand the legal, ethical and situational
factors that affect the attention that must be paid to privacy. In
particular, I'd like to the answers or have your options on the
following questions;

1. On what grounds was it deemed acceptable for Person Finder to have
such an open system?

2. If the displacement had been caused by armed conflict, would Person
Finder still have been such an open system?

3. How does Person Finder address the issue of making publicly
available information on minors?

4. The arguments for an individual releasing information concerning
themselves is easily argued. However, how is this issue of an
individual releasing information about other individuals addressed?
For example, the ICRC's Family Links allows you to post information on
the person you are looking for. How real is the concern that exposing
this information might inadvertently put others at risk?

Thanks for everything!

Pete.

[Prem Ramaswami]

Hey Peter,

Thanks for the email.  I've tried my best to answer your questions inline below.  The questions you bring up are all valid concerns.  In a disaster scenario, most of these concerns do get set aside in the nearterm in the initial rush to find loved ones.  There is a Crisis Commons workshop that has been announced in the Spring that will discuss some of the points you bring up here as well as others around missing persons registries.  It would be a good venue for you to join.  

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Peter Sutton <petersu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

I'm currently in the middle of designing tools that aim to improve the
tracing services offered by relief organisations in situations that
require a humanitarian response. I'm currently a little confused about
the privacy issue.

Some tracing services such as the Red Cross's International Tracing
and Messaging Service operates with strict regard for privacy.
However, other tracing services, such as Google Person Finder and the
ICRC's Family Links, are completely open and operate with minimum/no
regard for privacy (I'm not saying either of these approaches is
(in)correct). I want to understand the legal, ethical and situational
factors that affect the attention that must be paid to privacy. In
particular, I'd like to the answers or have your options on the
following questions;

1. On what grounds was it deemed acceptable for Person Finder to have
such an open system?

There was a large community request and a need after the Haiti earthquake to build a system that numerous Media organizations and NGOs could use to sync the many silo'd databases that were being created.  Google's PersonFinder served as one of the hubs of this federated Database.

You're right that all data entered into Person Finder is available to the public and viewable and usable by anyone; we don't review or verify the accuracy of this data.  Designing the system this way allowed us to create one central tool which relief organizations, victims and family/friends could use, rather than using several different tools designed for the same purpose.

 

2. If the displacement had been caused by armed conflict, would Person
Finder still have been such an open system?

This is a great question and we don't have a clear cut answer yet.  We right now decide on a case by case basis whether or not to launch our version of Person Finder, though as the tool's source code was released early on, this doesn't stop other parties from doing the same. 

 

3. How does Person Finder address the issue of making publicly
available information on minors?

The system helps people connect with each other and of course children and adults are both victims in disaster situations so, right now, we don't distinguish in a record between minors and adults.  

Would you suggest not permitting records for those under a certain age?  Curious to hear your thoughts?

 

4. The arguments for an individual releasing information concerning
themselves is easily argued. However, how is this issue of an
individual releasing information about other individuals addressed?
For example, the ICRC's Family Links allows you to post information on
the person you are looking for. How real is the concern that exposing
this information might inadvertently put others at risk?

We've been working on features to make it easier for people to remove their personal information to reduce this fear.  Currently, when we receive a request to remove someone's record from PersonFinder, we do our best to respond promptly.   

 

Thanks for everything!

Pete.

--
=======================
Prem Ramaswami
Product Manager - Google
http://www.google.co.in/internetbus
=======================

[Tomas Antvorskov Krag]

Hej Peter,

I thought I'd chime in here as well, since we're (Refugees United) are a non-profit building an on-line tracing system for Refugees (and others looking for family) at http://refunite.org/.

Our approach is somewhere in between the complete openness of person finder and the strictly closed systems used by the ICRC and others. 

It's worth mentioning that our main target is Refugees, and as such we often deal with a much longer term displacement than the typical disaster relief situation. Also we have a international, cross.conflict database, and as such deal with people who have no issues registering in a public system as well as refugees from armed conflict who may have different issues. 

The system has been online since november 2008, and we're currently on our 3rd iteration, and have recently added mobile (sms and browser-based) tools to the palette. 

The idea behind Refugees United is that people register themselves with whatever amount of information they feel comfortable with. In many cases that information is similar to what personfinder collects, but we have a lot of fields that allow for anonymous registration, i.e. with nicknames, scars, birthmarks, memories from childhood etc. 

This information is openly visible online. People can then search for missing family, and if they find someone they think might be family, there is a closed (secure) message system on the platform that allows them to contact the other person without revealing infroation such as e-mail adresses or phone numbers. 

Precisely for reasons of privacy we don't let people register who they are looking for, but only themselves.

And with respect to minors, it's something we're still trying to figure out. We're just entering into dialogue with a group of International Aid orgs that work with displaced minors. At the moment what we do is to discourage minors from registering, and to throw away the age field of anyone under 18. The latter is to avoid traffickers etc. specifically searching for groups of minors. 

We're in dialogue with personfinder and others about ways of sharing information between the systems built for immediate information sharing, and our system, which is better suited to longer term refugee situations. 

Feel free to ping me with any other questions you have.

Regards

/Tomas

[Shadie.s.radmard]

Please take me off this list as I'm getting bombarded with emails.  I had requested this before and was assured that my name/email was removed.

Sent from my iPhone