On 10/14/05, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Chris Jenkinson wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
As much as I support the need and importance of
protecting personal
privacy, I think that this request is totally unrealistic. People
will respect that privacy because it's the right thing to do, and not
because of some legal document.
Those who want to reveal that information will do it without regard
to a legal document. If they do what do you propose doing about it?
Are you prepared to go halfway around the world to start some dubious
lawsuit? Such a document will only produce an illusion of safety.
Privacy laws are quite strong in the European Union and divulging of
personally-identifiable information related to European Union
citizens, whether or not the organisation is based in the EU or not,
is a criminal offence. An IP address may count as
personally-identifiable information.
No piece of paper is going to change that.
A piece of paper will certainly clarify the situation, and leave out
ignorance as an excuse.
The Wikimedia Foundation has chapters based in the EU
and has plans to
create more. Organisations can be penalised for
failure to comply with
EU privacy standards. If the WF has a contract with people who have
access to this functionality, if it ever does occur the WF will be
devoid of responsibility. Yes, it's a remote probability. But that
doesn't mean that it should not be insured against. It is not worth it
to the Wikimedia Foundation if the case ever arises.
This is only about protecting Wikimedia in the case of a law suit; it
still is not a deterrent to inc=dividuals who have no qualms about
breaching privacy.
So you think all written contracts are completely useless? I mean, if people
are just going to do whatever they want whenever they want to, then a piece
of paper isn't going to change that, according to your argument? Or is there
something different about privacy as compared to any other agreement that
people might come to?
What about people who have some qualms about breaching privacy? What about
people who don't think this information is private in the first place?
What about Mark Wagner? Does he have no qualms about breaching privacy? He
did, after all, release the IP block of the Vandalbot. Is that OK? Assuming
so, what other breaches of privacy are OK? Shouldn't we make this clear to
all people with access to this information, instead of just trusting that
everyone's ethics are exactly in line with what we want them to be?
Ec
Anthony