[Foundation-l] New privacy policy

[Kelly Martin]

On 6/21/06, Nathan Reed <nathanreed at gmail.com> wrote:
> Excellent -- thank you. Reading the policy, I find:
>
> "It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected
> in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser
> feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with
> CheckUser access, in the following situations:"
>
> Does this mean that personally identifiable information may be released by
> users with CheckUser permissions? For example, is it permissible for me to
> release the actual IP address of a vandal to the general public? I'm not
> sure, but this may not be a good thing.
>
> I can understand using the information for IP blocks, but perhaps the
> release of the information should not be so broad in these cases. Or, maybe
> I'm tired, have failed to comprehend the policy completely, and have missed
> something.. :D

We do have that authority, but we rarely use it.  Normally the only
way we would release an IP address would be in the context of placing
an IP block (or range block) of a vandal, which implicitly publicizes
the IP address to user interrelationship.

Kelly