[Foundation-l] Genisis of WMF Identification policy?

[Birgitte SB]

I was looking for something unrelated in the archives and came across an email 
[1] that I believe people might find informative wrt to the Identification 
Policy which I believe has had discussion tabled for the moment.  It seems to be 
the original suggestion that WMF needs some sort of identification policy by 
then volunteer/board-member Erik.  He was *not* a staff member at the time of 
this message, just to be clear, since people seem to be fond of re-framing 
debate along such lines lately. Summary of the context follows (Not perfectly 
accurate chronologically speaking):


A female leader in the zh.WP community was harassed/threatened by the creation 
of an account User:Rape[HerRealName]. Advice was sought in handling the 
situation. There was talk about going to the authorities. There was talk about 
which information about the account creator could be given to the authorities 
under what circumstances. The existing privacy policy was quoted as "6 Where it 
is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property or safety of the 
Wikimedia Foundation, its users or the public." . There was talk about it 
essentially being a matter of mature judgment to differentiate between 
derogatory comments, which however reprehensible, do not merit violating a 
user's privacy and threats of violence which would compel the violation of 
privacy in order to attempt to prevent such threats from being carried out.  The 
idea was suggested that perhaps those with the technical ability to access 
private information need to be identified to WMF so that WMF will know who deal 
with in case of abuse.

It seemed to me that many people were quite surprised that the WMF was planning 
on recording the identifications of those with access to private information, 
instead on the non-recording of this correspondense which I believe has been the 
previous practice. It even seemed to me as though some were shocked at the 
implication that WMF may perhaps be looking for legal accountability for the 
judgments made by those with this access. So I found it very interesting when I 
stumbled across evidence of public discussion of the need to record the 
identities of trusted users in order to be able to deal with any abuse of 
private information by one of the Community-seat Board Members before the 
adoption of the resolution that has become controversial so recently.  I don't 
mean to suggest that the surprise and shock were insincere, just that they seem 
to be rather uninformed as to the genesis of the resolution.  It seems to me 
that those things were in fact the original intentions behind the resolution and 
the staff does have an obligation, however unpopular this obligation may have 
become during the time period it has been left unfulfilled, to see to recording 
such identities.

Granted there are good reasons the obligation was left unfulfilled before, 
namely the lack of confidence in the WMF Office's technical and organizational 
ability to keep these records secure. But once the WMF Office reaches a level of 
reliability in organizational and technical competence where that objection is 
mitigated, they then must address their obligation to keep identification 
records.  Also there are valid concerns over the ambiguity over whether the 
access to which particular tools should qualify people as subject to the 
Identification Resolution. What, however, in hindsight do not appear to be valid 
concerns to me are why the WMF "wants" to "change" things, or that the decision 
to keep such records was not in given a proper public place for discussion. 


I can imagine that the staff  (who are much in contact with Erik who we must 
grant understood the intentions of a resolution he himself suggested the seed of 
in 2006) to some degree assumed that the trusted volunteers understood that the  
Identification Resolution's ultimate goal was the production of records and that 
practice of destroying correspondence was done out of responsibility for the 
fact that staff did not feel confident in their current ability to keep such 
records.  I can also imagine the trusted volunteers who were upset by the idea 
of such records being kept to some degree assumed because there has sometimes 
been a practice of destroying identification correspondence that this practice 
was in fact the agreed upon policy of the  Identification Resolution and also 
because they could not recall otherwise trusted volunteers to some degree 
assumed the potential policy of actually keeping identification records and why 
such records may be needed had never been brought up for public discussion until 
after it had been adopted.

Certainly the exact thoughts and communications during this recent 
misunderstanding were rather more varied, less articulated, and altogether a 
shade more grey than  my speculation. But I am confident that my speculations 
are not entirely inaccurate and that they are completely in good faith. There 
has recently been a lot of discussion about getting back to the tenet of 
assuming good faith.  Here is as a good a place to start that journey as any.

On the tabled issue we are still left at least two important questions that need 
resolution through an open discussion that succeeds in convincing those 
volunteers who may be affected:


*How can volunteers be made be confident in the security of their identification 
as records are being collected, recorded, and stored?  How can this confidence 
be maintained changes occur at WMF? Do these concerns merit the expense of 
security audits?

*What tools that volunteers use in order to do the work of WMF will require them 
to become a subject of the Identification Resolution? As new tools are 
developed, who will be responsible for keeping track of their existence and 
seeing that it is determined whether or not those who will be given access to 
them will need to become a subject of the Identification Resolution?

Birgitte SB

[1]  http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/wiki/foundation/74095#74095