I am writing to ask that the new privacy policy be stopped, pending briefings of and thorough consideration by the incoming executive director Lila Tretikov. The timing of this major policy change with all its implications, including great legal implications, is at minimum discourteous to Ms. Tretikov in this the second day of her tenure, and in my judgement should additionally be viewed as alarming.
"Wikimedia is beholden to no one, yet accountable to each and every human being," she said day before last. Yet the new policy makes every effort to distance it from accountability, by attempting to force every editor to consent to the most privacy-invasive technologies known, which include, all quoted:
"You should be aware that specific data made public by you or aggregated data that is made public by us can be used by anyone for analysis and to infer information about users, such as which country a user is from, political affiliation, and gender." "Type of device you are using possibly including unique device identification numbers." "The type and version of your browser, your browser's language preference, the type and version of your device's operating system." "The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier." "Which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request" (note: says "visit," not merely "edit"). "We actively collect information with tracking pixels, cookies, and local storage." "We use your email address." "We can use GPS and other technologies commonly used to determine location." "We may receive metadata." "IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy).
What is the heck is all this? Editors don't know they are signing up for this! But it gets even worse, because the WMF is not only providing this to its employees, but to hundreds of anonymous "administrators" to whom it grants access to this non-public, easily personally-identifying data. This means particularly, but not limited to: checkusers, arbitrators, stewards, UTRS users, and "community developers." Who are they? While Ms. Tretikov aspires to accountability, the new privacy policy flees to "exemptions" and "we know nothing." It specifically exempts these hundreds of people from the privacy policy. The WMF's Privacy Fellow Roshni Patel said two weeks ago "the Foundation can’t control the actions of community members such as administrative volunteers so we don’t include them under the privacy policy." Is this accountability? No. She further mystifyingly continues: "however, under the access policy, these volunteers must sign a confidentiality agreement." Mystifyingly, because it's *not* *true*. That part of the privacy policy "Requirements for Community Members Applying for Access to Nonpublic Information" requires only an email address and an assertion from an anonymous individual that he or she is 18 or over. Is there requirement there somewhere for a signature? No. Shall they sign for example under the nicknames of the prominent administrators like "Beeblebrox" and "Wizardman?" This is not accountability. (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy#Minim....)
How can the executive director be expected to assume responsibility for this stuff in 14 hours, on her third official day on the job? Out of simple courtesy to her, it needs to be delayed, while she is briefed on it by those who most understand it, like the general counsel Geoff Brigham.
Trillium Corsage
I think this is all information that is generally collected by server log files. Ie, I do not think there is anything special being collected On Jun 5, 2014 12:21 PM, "Trillium Corsage" trillium2014@yandex.com wrote:
I am writing to ask that the new privacy policy be stopped, pending briefings of and thorough consideration by the incoming executive director Lila Tretikov. The timing of this major policy change with all its implications, including great legal implications, is at minimum discourteous to Ms. Tretikov in this the second day of her tenure, and in my judgement should additionally be viewed as alarming.
"Wikimedia is beholden to no one, yet accountable to each and every human being," she said day before last. Yet the new policy makes every effort to distance it from accountability, by attempting to force every editor to consent to the most privacy-invasive technologies known, which include, all quoted:
"You should be aware that specific data made public by you or aggregated data that is made public by us can be used by anyone for analysis and to infer information about users, such as which country a user is from, political affiliation, and gender." "Type of device you are using possibly including unique device identification numbers." "The type and version of your browser, your browser's language preference, the type and version of your device's operating system." "The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier." "Which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request" (note: says "visit," not merely "edit"). "We actively collect information with tracking pixels, cookies, and local storage." "We use your email address." "We can use GPS and other technologies commonly used to determine location." "We may receive metadata." "IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy).
What is the heck is all this? Editors don't know they are signing up for this! But it gets even worse, because the WMF is not only providing this to its employees, but to hundreds of anonymous "administrators" to whom it grants access to this non-public, easily personally-identifying data. This means particularly, but not limited to: checkusers, arbitrators, stewards, UTRS users, and "community developers." Who are they? While Ms. Tretikov aspires to accountability, the new privacy policy flees to "exemptions" and "we know nothing." It specifically exempts these hundreds of people from the privacy policy. The WMF's Privacy Fellow Roshni Patel said two weeks ago "the Foundation can’t control the actions of community members such as administrative volunteers so we don’t include them under the privacy policy." Is this accountability? No. She further mystifyingly continues: "however, under the access policy, these volunteers must sign a confidentiality agreement." Mystifyingly, because it's *not* *true*. That part of the privacy policy "Requirements for Community Members Applying for Access to Nonpublic Information" requires only an email address and an assertion from an anonymous individual that he or she is 18 or over. Is there requirement there somewhere for a signature? No. Shall they sign for example under the nicknames of the prominent administrators like "Beeblebrox" and "Wizardman?" This is not accountability. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy#Minim... .)
How can the executive director be expected to assume responsibility for this stuff in 14 hours, on her third official day on the job? Out of simple courtesy to her, it needs to be delayed, while she is briefed on it by those who most understand it, like the general counsel Geoff Brigham.
Trillium Corsage
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Dear Mr. Brigham,
Excuse me, I should have copied you in the email I sent to the Wikimedia-l list I sent a few minutes ago, because I mentioned you in it. Here: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2014-June/072499.html.
Trillium Corsage
I think your concerns are way overblown, and you mishcaracterize or misunderstand the nature of the data collection that occurs. You also fail to even mention that there are safeguards that apply to how the data is used and how long it is retained.
Far from escaping accountability, the WMF privacy policy is a leap ahead of the types of policies (if any) that you encounter elsewhere on the web. It places strong limits on the use and retention of data, is provided to users in an easily understandable manner with a prominent and accurate brief summary and it was developed with the very substantial input of community members.
As a result, the finished policy has rightly garnered a lot of support and approval, and personally I'm happy to see it go live tomorrow.
~Nathan
On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 12:21 PM, Trillium Corsage trillium2014@yandex.com wrote:
I am writing to ask that the new privacy policy be stopped, pending briefings of and thorough consideration by the incoming executive director Lila Tretikov. The timing of this major policy change with all its implications, including great legal implications, is at minimum discourteous to Ms. Tretikov in this the second day of her tenure, and in my judgement should additionally be viewed as alarming.
"Wikimedia is beholden to no one, yet accountable to each and every human being," she said day before last. Yet the new policy makes every effort to distance it from accountability, by attempting to force every editor to consent to the most privacy-invasive technologies known, which include, all quoted:
"You should be aware that specific data made public by you or aggregated data that is made public by us can be used by anyone for analysis and to infer information about users, such as which country a user is from, political affiliation, and gender." "Type of device you are using possibly including unique device identification numbers." "The type and version of your browser, your browser's language preference, the type and version of your device's operating system." "The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier." "Which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request" (note: says "visit," not merely "edit"). "We actively collect information with tracking pixels, cookies, and local storage." "We use your email address." "We can use GPS and other technologies commonly used to determine location." "We may receive metadata." "IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy).
What is the heck is all this? Editors don't know they are signing up for this! But it gets even worse, because the WMF is not only providing this to its employees, but to hundreds of anonymous "administrators" to whom it grants access to this non-public, easily personally-identifying data. This means particularly, but not limited to: checkusers, arbitrators, stewards, UTRS users, and "community developers." Who are they? While Ms. Tretikov aspires to accountability, the new privacy policy flees to "exemptions" and "we know nothing." It specifically exempts these hundreds of people from the privacy policy. The WMF's Privacy Fellow Roshni Patel said two weeks ago "the Foundation can’t control the actions of community members such as administrative volunteers so we don’t include them under the privacy policy." Is this accountability? No. She further mystifyingly continues: "however, under the access policy, these volunteers must sign a confidentiality agreement." Mystifyingly, because it's *not* *true*. That part of the privacy policy "Requirements for Community Members Applying for Access to Nonpublic Information" requires only an email address and an assertion from an anonymous individual that he or she is 18 or over. Is there requirement there somewhere for a signature? No. Shall they sign for example under the nicknames of the prominent administrators like "Beeblebrox" and "Wizardman?" This is not accountability. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy#Minim... .)
How can the executive director be expected to assume responsibility for this stuff in 14 hours, on her third official day on the job? Out of simple courtesy to her, it needs to be delayed, while she is briefed on it by those who most understand it, like the general counsel Geoff Brigham.
Trillium Corsage
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On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Nathan, 05/06/2014 18:46:
As a result, the finished policy has rightly garnered a lot of support and
approval,
{{citation needed}}
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/07/launching-a-privacy-policy-built-the-w...
See comments. I've seen positive comments in other venues as well but don't have time to search for more citations.
Hi, Trillium and others-
The privacy policy has been the subject of one of the most extensive public discussions we've ever done. It was announced here repeatedly, was bannered extensively to give all readers and editors an opportunity to participate, and was open for discussion for nearly six months. The resulting discussion got feedback from hundreds of Wikimedians, including the engineering, ops, and analytics teams at the Foundation. Altogether, those folks wrote almost *two hundred thousand words*. That led to over 250 changes to the initial draft, many of them strengthening the protections we initially put in. The resulting final draft was then discussed extensively with the board, who approved it last month. (For more details, see Michelle's excellent blog post here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/05/07/launching-a-privacy-policy-built-the-wi... )
This is not to say the document is perfect - we know as Wikimedians that any written document can be argued over literally until the end of time. :) But we must, at some point, finalize legal policies so that we can move forward and implement them. For this policy, that point came when the board approved it last month. We'll now focus on making sure we're in compliance, and figuring out other ways to improve user privacy (like improving our HTTPS situation, being more systematic about anonymization and aggregation practices, etc.).
If you still have concerns, please put them on the talk page. Just like we did this time around, we'll review all those comments and incorporate them when we next revise the policy, or, if appropriate, incorporate it into the FAQ. We're also still welcoming questions about the data retention guidelines, and will continue to revise that as a living document that reflects our current best practices: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
Hope that helps clarify. Luis
P.S. Let me take this opportunity to again thank Michelle Paulson for her work leading this process; all told, it has been something like 18 months of work for her. And that is only the start for her - now that the policy is in place, she'll be working extensively with ops, analytics, the ombudsmen, and many others to ensure compliance and look for other ways to improve privacy. She deserves a big round of applause from every privacy-concerned Wikimedian for her tireless work on this issue, sometimes under literally thankless conditions. :)
On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 9:21 AM, Trillium Corsage trillium2014@yandex.com wrote:
I am writing to ask that the new privacy policy be stopped, pending briefings of and thorough consideration by the incoming executive director Lila Tretikov. The timing of this major policy change with all its implications, including great legal implications, is at minimum discourteous to Ms. Tretikov in this the second day of her tenure, and in my judgement should additionally be viewed as alarming.
"Wikimedia is beholden to no one, yet accountable to each and every human being," she said day before last. Yet the new policy makes every effort to distance it from accountability, by attempting to force every editor to consent to the most privacy-invasive technologies known, which include, all quoted:
"You should be aware that specific data made public by you or aggregated data that is made public by us can be used by anyone for analysis and to infer information about users, such as which country a user is from, political affiliation, and gender." "Type of device you are using possibly including unique device identification numbers." "The type and version of your browser, your browser's language preference, the type and version of your device's operating system." "The name of your internet service provider or mobile carrier." "Which pages you request and visit, and the date and time of each request" (note: says "visit," not merely "edit"). "We actively collect information with tracking pixels, cookies, and local storage." "We use your email address." "We can use GPS and other technologies commonly used to determine location." "We may receive metadata." "IP address of the device (or your proxy server) you are using to access the Internet, which could be used to infer your geographical location." (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy).
What is the heck is all this? Editors don't know they are signing up for this! But it gets even worse, because the WMF is not only providing this to its employees, but to hundreds of anonymous "administrators" to whom it grants access to this non-public, easily personally-identifying data. This means particularly, but not limited to: checkusers, arbitrators, stewards, UTRS users, and "community developers." Who are they? While Ms. Tretikov aspires to accountability, the new privacy policy flees to "exemptions" and "we know nothing." It specifically exempts these hundreds of people from the privacy policy. The WMF's Privacy Fellow Roshni Patel said two weeks ago "the Foundation can’t control the actions of community members such as administrative volunteers so we don’t include them under the privacy policy." Is this accountability? No. She further mystifyingly continues: "however, under the access policy, these volunteers must sign a confidentiality agreement." Mystifyingly, because it's *not* *true*. That part of the privacy policy "Requirements for Community Members Applying for Access to Nonpublic Information" requires only an email address and an assertion from an anonymous individual that he or she is 18 or over. Is there requirement there somewhere for a signature? No. Shall they sign for example under the nicknames of the prominent administrators like "Beeblebrox" and "Wizardman?" This is not accountability. ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_to_nonpublic_information_policy#Minim... .)
How can the executive director be expected to assume responsibility for this stuff in 14 hours, on her third official day on the job? Out of simple courtesy to her, it needs to be delayed, while she is briefed on it by those who most understand it, like the general counsel Geoff Brigham.
Trillium Corsage
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On 5 June 2014 18:33, Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote: ...
If you still have concerns, please put them on the talk page. Just like we did this time around, we'll review all those comments and incorporate them when we next revise the policy, or, if appropriate, incorporate it into the FAQ. We're also still welcoming questions about the data retention guidelines, and will continue to revise that as a living document that reflects our current best practices: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines
Hope that helps clarify.
It does clarify.
The thinking behind Nemo's irony in response to Nathan's statement, is probably in part due to the fact that some concerns were ignored (i.e. no reply of any sort from legal) and then archived as addressed without comment, while other concerns were debated at length, some volunteers dropping out probably due to volunteer fatigue during that process, but with little or no end impact on the policy. The statement on this email list was: "As a result, the finished policy has rightly garnered a lot of support and approval"
This is true, however it is more accurate to say: "As a result, the policy has rightly garnered a lot of debate."
Reflecting the tone of your email, you may prefer a more politic but still accurate statement of: "As a result, the policy has benefited from an extensive process of consultation, resulting in several changes being included by WMF Legal."
At the end of the day, the websites are owned by the Foundation, and it is WMF Legal that advises the Foundation board of trustees on these aspects and proposes policy documents. I am grateful that even though you could go away into a back-room and come out with Vatican style proclamations of policy, instead you make attempts to consult with those members of the community interested in participating on meta. At times this is time consuming, however even when done, this is not evidence of "support and approval". Perhaps such a claim could be made if the process included an extensive !vote on the outcome with overwhelming support, however this would be a dodgy proposition if WMF legal were unable to recommend the result.
Fae
To Luis and others,
First thank you for responding. Now, you referred to WMF lawyer Michelle Paulson's "excellent blog post," yes I suppose it is that. It's a terrific marketing document and piece of salesmanship, with feel-good phrases like "the Wikimedia way is unique," "open and collaborative process," and "the policy wouldn’t have been possible without support from users like you." Its title is a bit ominous: "Launching a Privacy Policy Built the Wiki Way." I, and 90 percent of editors if they understood what they are about to be subjected to, want a privacy policy built by lawyers and executives that they reasonably trust to protect their interests, not one that purports to be written as if a Wikipedia article by whomever shows up and starts typing.
Is the policy, as Paulson states, truly "intended to protect the user community?" Explain to me and others that are concerned how Wikipedia using tracking pixels, supercookies, GPS technology, and metadata on us is designed to protect us. As Jimi Hendrix sang: "let us stop talking falsely now, the hour's getting late." What Paulson and Brigham are doing there, only with the other tracking and analysis technologies that I quoted directly from the policy in my email preceding last, is not protecting the users but rather establishing the legal defense position of "you were duly warned."
Luis, please tell me if I'm wrong then, for example, how my being monitored at Wikipedia with tracking pixels and GPS technologies protects me or my interests.
I also disagree with you where you emphasize that there were 200,000 words of constructive discussion. To anyone who reads Wikipedia talkpages, there is a great portion of chat-room-like content as well as redundancy as well as people that just don't know what they are talking about. So it doesn't convince me for you to brandish "200,000 words," no more than "2 million." Wikipedia editors don't keep up with that, they depend on specialists to look out for their interests, and this policy is not doing that at all.
How does it look out for the community's interests to accord total anonymity and exemption from the policy to the hundreds of administrators that are basically online role-playing gamers, pushing around editors and "investigating" them at whim and to the devil knows what ends? Not long ago one of these types actually banned a Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson. The same administrator had previously boasted on Wikipedia of his large penis, and further cursed a content editor that he should "rot in the hell that is eternal block." Josephson won his Nobel in physics "for his theoretical predictions of the properties of a supercurrent through a tunnel barrier." The administrator, that goes by at least three known usernames, is a cheap dumb anonymous cyberbully. The world the WMF is making places the one above the other, but I'm not sure it's the right one. (Https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=block&user=DangerousPanda&page=User%3ABrian+Josephson&year=&month=-1&tagfilter=), (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notice....)
The answer is simple on that part at least. The WMF must start identifying, if not publicly at least to it, those it accords access to the personal-identifiable information of editors. They're going to behave better if they know they can be held accountable for their actions.
Trillium Corsage
05.06.2014, 18:34, "Luis Villa" lvilla@wikimedia.org:
Hi, Trillium and others-
On Fri, 6 Jun 2014, at 5:02, Trillium Corsage wrote:
They're going to behave better if they know they can be held accountable for their actions.
That's not something you can force on people.
People can easily be anonymous by means of generic nicknames, shared IPs and whatnot - even releasing a contributors's IP out in the public, which clearly violates privacy of a registered contributor, would not help to hold him/her "accountable" if he does not want to. And if he wants to, he can put identifying information on his/her personal page anyway.
I don't see any relation of a privacy policy to such kind goal.
On 5 June 2014 17:21, Trillium Corsage trillium2014@yandex.com wrote:
I am writing to ask that the new privacy policy be stopped, pending briefings of and thorough consideration by the incoming executive director Lila Tretikov.
Regardless of the merits of the policy, which others have addressed, and with all due respect to Lila, her arrival has no bearing on this. She's the CEO, and a change of CEO does not invalidate the WMF or community processes used, nor decisions reached, under her predecessor.
-- Andy Mabbett @pigsonthewing http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
On 06/06/2014 06:14 AM, Andy Mabbett wrote:
Regardless of the merits of the policy, which others have addressed, and with all due respect to Lila, her arrival has no bearing on this.
And, unless I am mistaken, adoption of the policy was an act of the Board of Trustees who are, quite literally, Lila's boss. :-)
-- Marc
Echoing Luis's shout-out to Michelle for such a colossal achievement.
Dan Rosenthal ====
"P.S. Let me take this opportunity to again thank Michelle Paulson for her work leading this process; all told, it has been something like 18 months of work for her. And that is only the start for her - now that the policy is in place, she'll be working extensively with ops, analytics, the ombudsmen, and many others to ensure compliance and look for other ways to improve privacy. She deserves a big round of applause from every privacy-concerned Wikimedian for her tireless work on this issue, sometimes under literally thankless conditions. :)"
+1... Well done Michelle! On 6 Jun 2014 18:46, "Dan Rosenthal" swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Echoing Luis's shout-out to Michelle for such a colossal achievement.
Dan Rosenthal
"P.S. Let me take this opportunity to again thank Michelle Paulson for her work leading this process; all told, it has been something like 18 months of work for her. And that is only the start for her - now that the policy is in place, she'll be working extensively with ops, analytics, the ombudsmen, and many others to ensure compliance and look for other ways to improve privacy. She deserves a big round of applause from every privacy-concerned Wikimedian for her tireless work on this issue, sometimes under literally thankless conditions. :)" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
+1 Not easy.
On 6 June 2014 18:52, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
+1... Well done Michelle! On 6 Jun 2014 18:46, "Dan Rosenthal" swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Echoing Luis's shout-out to Michelle for such a colossal achievement.
Dan Rosenthal
"P.S. Let me take this opportunity to again thank Michelle Paulson for
her
work leading this process; all told, it has been something like 18 months of work for her. And that is only the start for her - now that the policy is in place, she'll be working extensively with ops, analytics, the ombudsmen, and many others to ensure compliance and look for other ways
to
improve privacy. She deserves a big round of applause from every privacy-concerned Wikimedian for her tireless work on this issue,
sometimes
under literally thankless conditions. :)" _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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