Hi all,

If you are actively using IP addresses of not-logged-in editors of the Wikimedia projects for your research or intend to do so in the future, please read on. Otherwise, you can stop here.

As you know, IP addresses can provide a wealth of information about not-logged-in editors, including sensitive information such as their location and organization. This can pose a privacy risk to these editors. To mitigate this, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is currently working on a project to mask IP addresses and limit their exposure and storage on our platform.

The IP masking project can have an impact on your work. Given that the Research team represents the needs of the Wikimedia research community in the Wikimedia Foundation, we are reaching out to you to notify you of the upcoming changes. We do this in coordination with the team responsible for IP masking.

The change: When WMF launches the IP masking, future edits from not-logged-in users (sometimes referred to as unregistered users) will no longer be attributed to their IP addresses. Instead, they will be assigned auto generated temporary usernames that will be tied to a cookie on their browsers. As long as the cookie persists, the edits will be attributed to that user. After a certain period of time (tentatively one year), the cookie will automatically expire. Users who need access to IP addresses to protect Wikimedia projects from vandalism or other abuse will be able to do so on a limited basis and for a limited period of time.

No change. IP addresses of not-logged-in users in the historical data will remain unchanged. The IP masking rollout will affect future edits (relative to the time of rollout) only.

Timelines: The projected timeline for early pilot (in 1-2 wikimedia projects) rollout is between October-December 2023. The team doesn’t yet have a projected timeline for a complete rollout of this change to all Wikimedia projects.

What we have considered to offer instead. We understand the importance of IP addresses for research purposes. To that end:

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The Research https://research.wikimedia.org/team.html and Security https://security.wikimedia.org/ teams did an initial exploration of whether we can offer one or more alternative datasets that can support existing research that utilizes IP addresses. We concluded that we will not be able to offer country level data –the most common use-case of IP addresses to the best of our knowledge – at the revision level at this point in time. -

The Research team will consider exploring the option to offer a user-group level access to researchers who need to have access to this data. The priority of this work will depend on other priorities of the Research team as well as an impact assessment based on what we hear from the researchers who currently work with this data. (See the next paragraph. )

Impact on your research: If this change creates a significant burden on you or your research, we want to hear from you by April 30, 2023. You can communicate this impact by leaving a comment in https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T332034. If there is an impact that you cannot communicate publicly, please write an email to Niharika Kohli < nkohli@wikimedia.org> (IP Masking, Product Manager, also in CC) & myself < lzia@wikimedia.org> (Head of Research). We commit to reviewing all comments we receive by the deadline, and we commit to exploring ways to support you to reduce the impact on you and your work. We also ask for your understanding. If this data is not essential for your work, please consider using the many other data sources that we make publicly available, including but not limited to those listed in https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Data.

Sharing your expertise. If you have conducted research or are aware of research that the team should take into account as WMF moves forward with IP masking, please share that with the team on the project’s talk page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IP_Editing:_Privacy_Enhancement_and_Abuse_Mitigation .

Stay updated. You can stay updated about this project through the project’s dedicated page https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IP_Editing:_Privacy_Enhancement_and_Abuse_Mitigation .

Please consider this email as a one-time courtesy notification. We may not send reminders. As a result, if your work may be affected, please take a note of this email and reach out to us by the deadline. :)

Thanks,

Leila

-- Leila Zia Head of Research Wikimedia Foundation