Privacy Concerns

Let me begin this week by saying that I once again feel like I read these articles in the wrong order (although this time I followed the syllabus's order, not just the order they were posted on Learn@UW). Even though I have a science background, I felt like the Streiffer article was both too complicated in its technical jargon, but also much more focused on the forms for gaining consent than on the ethical implications of omitting any of these data fields on said forms. I suppose the focus this week was on privacy (or "two facets of privacy", according to the syllabus), but honestly, what is the drive behind privacy? Fear, to put it simply, but fear about what? Personally, I have trouble rationalizing fears about my cells being used for scientific research, but I think that's because, as I've already said, I have a background in science, and I can see the potential value behind using these cells for research. Some may have religious convictions about having their cells used, so I can fully understand reservations coming from there. But what about the people who just have an all-out fear of all that is scientific progress, particularly that involves testing using human cells. I have often heard arguments about the possibility of being denied insurance coverage if the insurance company was able to find out that we were genetically more likely to get a certain disease, but those arguments hardly seem founded when we're talking about cells that are, for all intensive purposes, completely anonymous (yes, the DNA still exists in the cell, but how many people have been genetically mapped so that they could be matched to their cells' DNA?). With this level of anonymity, why not let science progress with our cells? As I've said, and I don't want to belabor the point, I honestly can't fathom the fear that most people have about allowing their cells to be used in scientific research. So with that, I look forward to hearing the class discussions about these points.

A large chunk of my reactions this week came from the Byrne article, possibly because he reached more personal levels of talking about identity theft and "Level 5" threats like revealing our social security or bank account number. Most of these reactions came because it was reminiscent of both some of the reading we did in This Book Is Overdue and also regarding some of my comments from last week's Pawley article, or at least made me think once again about patrons' library records. From the Pawley article, it was mostly the fact that historians are using postal records from the 19th century to track reading habits, something that I find similar to today's attempts by the FBI/CIA to track patrons' reading habits with their "security letters", and I always operated under the assumption that the postal service was both anonymous and private. As for TBIO, many of the librarians in TBIO stated that their library records are destroyed after X days, which ensures a level of anonymity for their patrons (I am thinking in particular about the computer sign-up sheets that the librarian couldn't provide to the FBI because they're shredded each night, but also about patron records in general). How identifiable do we become with our library records? What would someone be able to figure out about me if they looked at my history of book checkouts? Assuming no distinction between my public library account and my UW account; I go where the books are available, regardless of what location I get my books. In the past year or so, I have checked out a fictionalized account of the Vietnam War (Going after Cacciato); two classic teen books about the French Revolution (from the series by the Baroness Orczy); a nonfiction book about sex (Bonk! The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex); several books that were assigned for classes (mostly library-based, such as TBIO and Everything is Miscellaneous, as well as two for Collection Development); Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol; a new thriller, The Thirteenth Hour; The Disappearing Spoon, a book about fun facts about the elements; a book about Gilbert Lewis and Irving Langmuir, two pioneers of chemistry from the early-to-mid 20th century; an audio tape of the seventh Harry Potter book so that I could listen to it on a long car trip; and probably a few others that I can't even think of at this point. Could someone identify me from these books? If not, could they identify me if they knew what I was reading out of my own collection, assuming that I would have had to check those out of the library, too? Honestly, I clearly don't have much shame about reading a book about sex (hey, it was about science, too!), but would I want the government knowing that? With this strange of a combination of books, which seem rather heavy on the chemistry and library books front, could quite possibly pick me out of a crowd; how many people would really read about librarians and chemists both? Anyway, I return to the question at hand: what could people find out about us if our library records were made public? Thankfully there are people like the Connecticut Four who are fighting to preserve that privacy.