The most recent official WMF survey "Media Matching Screener
Survey"[1] which has terms and conditions published on 26 Feb 2021 by
LMixter (WMF)[2] was promoted on Wikimedia Commons on 1 March 2021 by
MRaish (WMF),[3] has no mechanism for tracking the geographic region
of contributors, as demonstrated by the fact that it can be edited by
open proxies. There are no questions within it or rubric that advise
contributors not to answer any questions if they are writing from
certain countries. The first page of the survey asks "What is your
gender identification?". Every page of the form has a link to "Report
Abuse" which takes the user to an apparent "Google Forms" standard
non-WMF statement about abuse with a long statement about a nudity
policy, and is presumably based on the Privacy Statement[2] a Google
internal report, not a WMF managed one. Page 3 has the question "What
is your country of residence?" but is only asked in the context of
paying the respondent unspecified compensation.
The survey Privacy Statment[2] acts as the terms and conditions for
the survey. It does not match the statement made on 17 February 2021.
Instead, this links to the standard Google Privacy Policy [4] and the
standard Google Terms of Service[5]. These terms contradict the 17
February 2021 WMF statement.
Copying in WMF legal to this email, as the earlier statements which
are asserted to have been reviewed with WMF legal, appear to be untrue
or a misunderstanding for whatever reason. WMF legal may wish to
clarify in their own voice as to whether they support the statement by
the WMF on 17 February 2021, and whether it shall be enforced and
when.
Reminder of WMF previous statement:
"... our Enterprise agreement with Google prevents Google from
accessing the data for their own uses and requires them to inform the
Foundation of any requests for data that they receive prior to
disclosure, allowing us an opportunity to file a legal objection"
"... we are purposefully not asking questions about sexual orientation
or gender in any geographies where same-sex relations or identifying
as transgender are criminalized"
Could the WMF please meet their stated commitment for the protection
of volunteers taking part in surveys and revoke surveys that fail to
meet them, starting with the "Media Matching Screener Survey"?
Links
1. Survey
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfT_lxMA_88rC8hZ9stzQ-S9b6VwZXcDNF…
2. Privacy Statement
https://foundation.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Media_Matching_Screener_…
3.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump#Invitation_to_help_…
4.
https://policies.google.com/privacy
5.
https://policies.google.com/terms
Thanks,
Fae
On Sun, 28 Feb 2021 at 11:20, Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A deeper look into the official response by the WMF raises some
questions about what it means in practice and whether a plain English
reading of the words is sufficient.
Q1: WMF tested open source solutions
"[Surveys] [...] we have previously tested and attempted to use open
source solutions such as LimeSurvey"
Can someone please provide the list of the multiple open source
solutions that the WMF has tested and the reports of why they were
each abandoned? This would be incredibly helpful for WMF Affiliates
who are doing exactly the same thing.
Q2: Legal objections
"[...] our Enterprise agreement with Google prevents Google from
accessing the data for their own uses and requires them to inform the
Foundation of any requests for data that they receive prior to
disclosure, allowing us an opportunity to file a legal objection.
[...] we have agreements with other services like Qualtrics"
Re-reading this, it seems an astonishingly generous and legally
binding commitment from Google, Qualtrics, and presumably other
suppliers that have not been named. These suppliers will refuse to
cooperate with legal investigations, such as US Government agencies,
or their own internal security threats, before consulting with WMF
Legal, and will wait for WMF Legal to object.
The question is, can someone please provide a link to a WMF-funded or
approved survey where this agreement was in place, or is it a
statement of what might happen in the future?
Based on my understanding of existing surveys like the still running
UCoC survey, the WMF terms and conditions and the referenced Google
terms and conditions are in direct contradiction to this assertion by
the WMF, and WMF Legal.
Q3: Geographical restriction
"[...] we are purposefully not asking questions about sexual
orientation or gender in any geographies where same-sex relations or
identifying as transgender are criminalized."
Can someone please link to a WMF-funded or approved survey where this
happened, or is this an ambition for the future that has not happened
yet?
In the example of the running UCoC survey (Google docs) this is not in
place. There is a question about gender identity that has the
potential to out people as transgender, and there is no technical
mechanism to filter by geographical location, nor are volunteers asked
to limit themselves if they live in a list of "hostile" countries.
Thanks,
Fae
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
On Tue, 23 Feb 2021 at 22:45, Valerio Bozzolan via Wikimedia-l
<wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> +1
>
> And if anyone has this document in their hands, please notify us here:
>
>
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275574
>
> On Tue, 2021-02-23 at 08:36 +0000, Fæ wrote:
> > Could someone provide a link to the discussed security review of
> > LimeSurvey? I've been unable to find it.
> > ...
> > Thanks,
> > Fae
> --
> Valerio Bozz.
--
faewik(a)gmail.com
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae