[Foundation-l] Changes to the identification policies and procedures

[Christine Moellenberndt]

Hi everyone,

Yes, there are some changes happening.  We announced it to the OTRS 
volunteers as they are the first to be directly impacted by this 
change.  Part of being an OTRS volunteer is the agreement that they 
would be willing to provide identification to the Foundation if 
requested.  I understand the frustration here, but Board policy says 
that those with access to non-public data must ID to the Foundation, 
OTRS volunteers have served with the understanding that they agree to ID 
if asked, we're now asking them to do so.  We are working with the OTRS 
volunteers to find the safest way to do so, that will comply with the 
Board but will also provide safety and security to the community.

-Christine and the vacationing Philippe

---------
Christine Moellenberndt
Community Associate
Wikimedia Foundation

christine at wikimedia.org


On 2/3/11 5:20 PM, MZMcBride wrote:
> Hi.
>
> This doesn't seem to have hit this list yet, so I'm posting here for general
> information and discussion.
>
> Effective February 1, 2011, there are two substantive changes to the
> policies and procedures surrounding identifying to the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> The first change is that OTRS agents will now be required to identify to the
> Wikimedia Foundation. The second change is that the submitted information
> will now be retained, when it was previously destroyed.
>
> This raises a number of questions:
> * Who made these decisions?
> * Why were these decisions made?
> * Who was consulted about these decisions?
> * Was potential impact to OTRS or other volunteer groups measured before
> these decisions were made? (This is particularly important given that (a)
> the collected information is not verified, raising questions about the
> virtue of this entire process; and (b) certain volunteers have already
> stated they will no longer volunteer in a particular capacity due to these
> changes.)
> * Will these decisions extend beyond OTRS agents?
> * As identification is primarily a legal issue, was legal counsel sought?
> (And if legal counsel was sought, who was involved, given the lack of a
> General Counsel currently?)
> * What will the data retention policies be for the collected information?
> * What will the data destruction policies be for the collected information?
> * Under what circumstances can this collected information be released? Does
> this information fall under the standard Wikimedia privacy policy?
> * Who has access to the submitted information (both in theory and in
> practice)?
>
> Looking at this more broadly:
> * What's the virtue of identification?
> * Is there a reasonable rationale or justification for it, given that the
> identities are not verified?
> * Can the submitted information be verified?
> * Should the submitted information be verified?
>
> In the interest of transparency, I should note that I've been involved in at
> least two discussions about identification on the English Wikipedia:
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identification
> * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrator_accountability
>
> I believe these issues are of interest to both the Wikimedia community and
> the outside community. As such, I've posted these questions to Meta-Wiki
> here:<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Identification_questions_and_answers>.
> I encourage others to add questions or improve the page as they see fit.
>
> Philippe is taking a well-deserved vacation currently following the 2010
> fundraiser, but other members of both the Community Department and the
> Wikimedia Foundation should be able to answer most or all of these
> questions. If others aren't able to answer some of these questions, the
> questions can wait until Philippe returns.
>
> However, I believe it's very important that these questions and answers be
> publicly available as soon as reasonably possible, especially given some of
> the past explicit statements that said, for example, that IDs are always
> destroyed. (To be clear, these statements weren't inaccurate at the time,
> but now are.) Substantive changes such as these should be well-documented
> and discussed.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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