[Labs-l] Discussion needed: Technically feasible, legally okay... but want tools do we want?

[Johannes Kroll]

On Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:20:29 +0200
Silke Meyer <silke.meyer at wikimedia.de> wrote:

> Lots of stuff in this world is legal but I would never do it because I can
> decide to do better.

Sure, but this is not about what you would do, but what any person
could do.

A large pile of personal data generates a large desire to use it. That's
why people argue against data /retention/ in the first place, and not
only against the use of data: once data is collected, and in this case
made publically available, it is eventually going to be used. I don't
think the DUI tool author is to blame for this. It is a little
surprising to me that people make such a fuss about this tool. Don't
they know that this data is collected in the database?

Even if we would force the tool author to implement opt-in for this
tool, the data would still be there. 'Malicious' people who don't
respect others' privacy (and those are the people we worry about) could
still use it. It is as easy as clicking the "fork me on Github" button,
commenting out the opt-in parts, and "git clone"ing the code on Labs (or
on the Toolserver, for that matter). This "opt in" would be a placebo,
or worse, a delusion of privacy. 

I think it is important that people know and understand what data is
collected about them in the first place. The fuss about this tool shows
that many don't.

The discussion, I think, should be about what data should be collected
and made available, and how individual users can control their data,
not about some opt-in in one particular tool.



-- 
Johannes Kroll
Softwareentwickler

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Tel. (030) 219 158 26-0

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