🎧 The “Privacy Policy” Policy (IRL Podcast)

Listened IRL Podcast: The “Privacy Policy” Policy from irlpodcast.org

In the Season 5 premier of IRL, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Charlie Warzel, writer-at-large with the New York Times, about our complicated relationship with data and privacy — and the role privacy policies play in keeping things, well, confusing. You’ll also hear from Parker and Lila, two young girls who realize how gaming and personal data intersect. Rowenna Fielding, a data protection expert, walks us through the most efficient ways to understand a privacy policy. Professor Lorrie Cranor explains how these policies have warped our understanding of consent. And privacy lawyer Jenny Afia explains why “privacy” is a base element of being human.

Manoush Zomorodi leads an exploration of what we mean by privacy by taking a dive into privacy policies. Charlie Warzel, the editor behind the New York Times’ Privacy Project, argues that Privacy has become an impoverished word. Another option for this is a ‘hyperobject’, as James Bridle explains in the New Dark Age,

The philosopher Timothy Morton calls global warming a ‘hyperobject’: a thing that surrounds us, envelops and entangles us, but that is literally too big to see in its entirety.Page 77

The argument in the end is that with the rise of surveillance capitalism, we have moved over time from ‘we might use’ your data to ‘we will’ use your data, therefore making privacy policies seemingly null and void.

For more on privacy policies, Bill Fitzgerald argues that we need to move beyond compliance to focus on privacy:

The more we can ground these conversations [around privacy] in personal elements the better: what do you want to show? Why? How? Do you ever want to retract it?

Alternatively, Amy Collier provides the follow list to consider:

  • Audit student data repositories and policies associated with third-party providers
  • Have a standard and well-known policy about how to handle external inquiries for student data and information.
  • Provide an audit of data to students who want to know what data is kept on them, how the data is kept, where it is kept, and who else has access.
  • Have clear guidelines and regulations for how data is communicated and transmitted between offices.
  • Take seriously the data policies of third-party vendors.
  • Closely examine and rethink student-tracking protocols.
  • Give students technological agency in interacting with the institution.

In regards to privacy policies associated with third-party vendors, Fitzgerald suggests looking for the following search words associated with consent: third party, affiliatuons, change, update and modify.

For a different approach, Amy Wang reports on the terms of services associated with Instagram. She also includes extracts from a lawyer, Jenny Afia, who rewrote the document in plain English. This is similar to Terms of Service, Didn’t Read, a site designed to not only summarise Terms of Services, but also highlight aspects to consider.

5 responses on “🎧 The “Privacy Policy” Policy (IRL Podcast)”

  1. Welcome to another month of Read Write Respond, a newsletter of ideas and information associated with all things in and out of education, mined and curated for me and shared with you.

    June is always an interesting time in the the school year. With end of semester, biannual reports and the cold and flu season. This year did not disappoint.
    Due to a change of circumstances, my wife has stepped up in regards to her responsibilities at work. Along with being more involved within the leadership group, she has been organising replacements teachers each day. Along with study, this has left her with very little time for anything else. Subsequently, this month, even more than usual, I have been taking the ‘second shift‘ balancing meals, pickup, cleaning and general runaround.
    On the work front, I was posed with a question: do you want to do on-boarding of new schools or consultation where I would work collaboratively with schools to solve their problems. Although I was torn with where I see myself long term, I said that onboarding was more of an imperative right now so that is where I needed to be. So I have been progressively moving to the PreFlight team, although in many respects I already was in that team. This is all while guiding a few schools through the reporting season.
    Personally, I have continued to take Friday’s off on leave to stay home with Ms 3, which is a priceless opportunity in my opinion. (She is only 3 for one year.) I have been listening to quite a few records, including Art of Fighting’s Luna Low, Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back, Radiohead’s MINIDISCS and Kirin J Callinan’s Return to Centre. However, the album I keep coming back to has been Mark Ronson’s Late Night Feeling. I finally saw Dr Strange, which helped make a bit more sense of Endgame. I finished reading Mike Monteiro’s Ruined by Design. In regards to workflows, I finally got around to adding my social media feeds to Inoreader. I also wrote a couple of longer pieces. One a response to Austin Kleon arguing that blogging is about letting ideas into your world, not vice versa:

    Twist Your Head Around, It’s All Around You – a Reflection on Letting Blogs In

    The second post about the importance of trusting teachers:

    On Trusting Teachers

    Learning and Teaching
    Banning mobile phones in schools: beneficial or risky? Here’s what the evidence says
    Neil Selwyn suggests banning phones overlooks the immediate measures to deal with cybersafety, ignores the digital distraction associated with all devices and misses the opportunity for a conversation.
    Using debating and Socratic Seminars to improve my students’ critical thinking
    Bianca Hewes documents her use of Socratic Seminars to support students in engaging with the critical frame.
    How to study (for English)
    Deborah Netolicky shares some strategies and suggestions to support the study process.
    School Growth: Small Changes Lead to BIG Impact
    Chris Wejr reflects on his experiences of using learning sprints as a means of making small and meaningful impact.
    How (and why) to roll your own frameworks in consulting engagements
    Tom Critchlow on co-creating a framework to inform decision making.

    Technology
    The “Privacy Policy” Policy – IRL Podcast
    Manoush Zomorodi leads an exploration of what we mean by privacy by taking a dive into privacy policies.
    Decades of history could be ‘erased from Australia’s memory’ as tape machines disappear, archivists warn
    James Elton discusses the demise of tape machines and the memories kept on them.
    #Domains19: Minority Report – One Nation Under CCTV
    Martin Hawksey takes a look at privacy and security associated with our digital futures.
    Why Most Marketing Emails Still Use HTML Tables
    Ernie Smith discusses the problems with email and the need to move forward.
    AirPods Are a Tragedy
    Describing the Apple AirPod headphones as if from the future, Caroline Haskins breaks down the impact of the device on the world at large.

    Reflections
    I live-tweeted the raids on the ABC — and it was a first for the AFP
    John Lyons reports Australian Federal Police’s raid on ABC and what this means for democracy.
    Research: Women Score Higher Than Men in Most Leadership Skills
    Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman discuss research into women in leadership. What was interesting was the influence of self belief.
    After a near-death experience, Andrew Denton has a new intensity
    Konrad Marshall provides a profile for Andrew Denton and his talk show Interview.
    The mindfulness conspiracy
    Ronald Purser argues that paying closer attention on the present is not revolutionary, but rather magical thinking on steroids
    We Need a Data-Rich Picture of What’s Killing the Planet
    Clive Thompson discusses the power of big data to support making clearer decisions around climate change.

    Read Write Respond #042
    So that is June for me, how about you? As always, happy to hear. Also interested if anyone has any thoughts on the changes I made. Rather than including a range lengthy elaborations, I have provided a short summary and linked to my bookmarks.

    Cover Image via JustLego101

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