Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Opinion
The Desegregation of Privacy Issues: Closing the Privacy Gap?
10/11/2006
Although I think and read about it regularly, I won’t claim to have a clue how these privacy and identity issues will be resolved for individual humans, the ones originally noted as having “rights” in the U.S. Constitution. It d'es make the squirming of celebrities, who trade their privacy for fame and then whine about it, seem more and more childish, given that we all suffer privacy impositions.
Even though it was explained to me several times in law school, I have always wondered why corporations have so many of the Constitutional rights that individual humans have. Over time, I’ve had a perception of a “privacy divide,” or “privacy segregation,” where people are losing privacy even as institutions gain complexity and the ability to hide more from us.
However, the growing revelation that our cultural institutions such as government and corporations are losing their “privacy” is heartening. Some of the first indications include the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was intended to provide more transparency deeper into the inner workings of corporations. Some smaller businesses complain that complying with Sarbanes-Oxley costs them money. Tough. Get used to it.
You are probably familiar with at least the existence of the LEED rating system of buildings, whereby the U.S. Green Building Council certifies the “greenness” of new buildings on a scale that includes silver, gold, and platinum rating designations.
Last week I was at Arizona State University for the first annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE). There, while over 700 attendees enjoyed various sessions, one small task force presented some ideas to an enthusiastic room of 60+ people who think that a rating system for the sustainability of campuses might also be a fine idea. (Not an assessment, nor a ranking system, but a rating system.)
No need for details here, but the one part of the AASHE task force recommendation that jarred me a bit was that this new rating system might not have its ratings certified by a third party. Instead, it is proposed that colleges and universities that wish to be rated will be able to complete an online form and be assigned a rating instantly. The system would, in this draft form at least, depend on transparency. No credentialed third part will be checking the facts. Instead, the system will rely on the public.
That was hard for me to choke down, but then I thought a bit on some of the news items I’ve been finding for IT Trends lately, and I decided it most probably will work.
You might think that top officials at a big company like Hewlett-Packard could safely hire private agencies to investigate each other without it becoming open public knowledge. That wasn’t the case. And it’s more and more less the case, especially with the Internet operating so well.
Recommended Reading
- Getting the Money Right
A clear sign that online and distance learning is maturing is that we are struggling with how to organize and fund these programs on an ongoing basis.
- Technology and Campus Services
Can auxiliary services be mission-critical? You bet they can. With tuition on the rise, Auxiliary Services departments at a variety of colleges and universities are proving that they can innovate and still save their parent institutions cash.
- Ad It Up
Commercials on television tend to enrage me and laugh tracks are guaranteed to give me a headache. Plus, where do people find the time to watch TV?
- What Is the Purpose of an Electronic Portfolio? Is the Answer the Key to Your Successful Implementation?
Among many themes, Margaret Price explores the theme of purpose in her Viewpoint. One purpose of ePortfolio is to reflect on change from a beginning to a later point in time. In a future Viewpoint, Margaret will return to the SpEl.Folio and we’ll see how her thinking and her project have evolved.
- Making Faculty Smarter about Smart Technology
If you’re not also enabling the ‘why’ or ‘what’ behind the tech tools you give your faculty, you’re not enabling effective use of those tools.
- Smashing the Shackles of Intentionally Dysfunctional Technology
Until last week, it hadn’t "clicked" inside my head that the Library of Congress could or would make specific exemptions to copyright laws.
