Injunctions and the restriction of information

Injunctions - unfairly restricting the flow of information?

There has obviously been a lot of chatter in the past few days in the light of the recent revelations regarding a certain well-known personality (I’m not going to name names given that the injunction is still in place).  Unfortunately, due to the nature of the injunction that is in place, the main focus of the discussion has been the kind of prurient revelations that are manna from heaven for the tabloid press.  Their rabid attempts to reveal the name of the individual involved have caused many to question any attempt to break an injunction.  However, not all injunctions are in place to protect celebrities from the tabloid press.

Previous to the recent revelations, John Hemming MP had revealed to the House of Commons a case that was particularly disturbing.  From The Telegraph:

Politicians criticised the injunctions as an “affront to democracy” after John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, disclosed details of one on the floor of the Commons last week.

…

The hyper-injunction goes a step further. Mr Hemming told the Commons that the order, which was obtained at the High Court in 2006, prevents an individual from saying that paint used in water tanks on passenger ships could break down and release potentially toxic chemicals.

It specifically bars the person from discussing the case with “members of Parliament, journalists and lawyers”, along with the US coastguard and any ship owners, and also forbids any speculation linking chemicals in the paint with the illness of any individuals.

It says: “The defendant must not communicate to the third parties any speculation that the illness of any individual (including without limitation the collapse of H) was, has been or will be brought out by the chemical composition or the chemicals present in the coating of the potable water tanks.”

This is a particularly disturbing case.  To prevent an individual from even discussing a case with his MP is a gross violation of their democratic rights.  The ability of a corporation to restrict this information is also deeply troubling.  I am not going to pass judgement on the nature of the allegations (obviously), but the individual concerned should at least have the right to discuss the action that has been taken against them with their MP.  One wonders how many other such injunctions have been issued.

It is a shame that one sexual scandal has overshadowed the issue of injunctions.  Their use isn’t always restricted to personal matters between two individuals, they’re also utilised to stop the public gaining access to information which is very much in their interest (a case of public interest rather than in the interest of the public).  As someone working in the information field, any restriction on the flow of information is troubling and the aforementioned case especially so.  Of course, the woolly legislation around injunctions and privacy needs to be resolved by the judiciary and politicians as soon as possible.  And resolved in the best interests of the general public, not the media or wealthy individuals who can afford to take out such injunctions.

It is a shame that it was the tabloid baiting injunction that was revealed to the public, but it is entirely understandable why.  I don’t know if it was foremost in Hemming’s mind (I think events involving the attempts to gag Twitter users and imprison a journalist were possibly uppermost) but you can be assured that if the individual referred to in the Telegraph’s piece was revealed, there would barely be a murmur in the media.  It is a rather sad indictment of our celebrity obsessed culture that the only way to ensure publicity of such injunctions was to refer to the case of a renowned sportsman rather than that of a potential public health issue.

Whatever the motive and whatever the reasoning, the flow of information that is genuinely in the public interest should be protected at all costs.   This is the issue that should be central to the debate, not the private lives of so-called ‘celebrities’.

Facebook – More Privacy Concerns

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Facebook and privacy concerns.  The biggest concern has been the way in which privacy is managed from your Facebook account.  In short, the privacy functionality is far too arduous.  At present, there are 50 separate privacy settings and 170 options – far too many for anyone to keep track of let alone effectively manage.  So concerned are people by the complex nature of privacy management, there are many people who are considering switching off their accounts altogether (although it should be noted that this doesn’t mean your data gets wiped from Facebook…..they keep it forever).  Now some people are happy to give up a great deal of personal information to a faceless corporation (I wonder if these same people oppose ID cards??), but for many it is concerning.  If you are concerned about this, the BBC has makes a number of recommendations on its website.

Openbook - Searches Facebook Status Updates

If, until now, you were not overly concerned about your privacy you may be about to change your mind.  The Guardian this morning had an interesting piece about a new tool that is simultaneously scary and interesting.  Openbook is a website that could led make even the most open person pause for thought in their willingness to share information about themselves (note the quote from Zuckerberg in the top right corner).  Using a simple search engine (see image), it enables people to search through non-protected status updates for specific terms.  You don’t even have to have a Facebook account to use it.   Not only does the search result in matching status updates being listed, it also displays the appropriate profile picture so that everyone knows exactly who posted the update.  Scared yet?  The Guardian published a couple of examples of updates it found when searching the site:

“dam right i cheated i coulnt get it from u wen i needed it”

“I’m sorry, I lied before when I said I used to make lots of bets. My therapist tells me I should try lying a lot to help get through my… gambling problem”.

“im not gonna bother anymore…theres no point hiding the truth…..iv lost too much and all because i lied to the one i love…im such a fukin dick head, i fucked up the best girl i’ve ever had”.

None of which you’d really want anyone else to see, I’m sure.

Now, I ought to point out at this stage that only displays updates that are not secured by the user.  All updates that are subject to strict privacy controls will not appear in any search conducted on Openbook.  If you haven’t locked your account though, you may want to rethink your willingness to slag off your employer/colleagues/wife/girlfriend…it could lead to all sorts of trouble.

Having said all that, such a tool does provide some benefits, especially to those working in public libraries.  For some time now, I have been using Twitter‘s advanced search tool to seek out feedback from customers about their experiences of the library service.  It’s an excellent way of capturing feedback and communicating with customers.  Quite often, members of the public don’t expect random library employees to read Twitter feeds, so you can often get quite honest feedback (sometimes brutally so) about your service – a crucial tool for improving and developing the service.  Now, with Facebook open to similar types of searches, there is yet another avenue for librarians to explore in order to see how users view the service (more on this at Musings about librarianship).

This is not to say that I am not concerned by the latest developments on Facebook, I find it deeply worrying.  It’s one thing to make this sort of information open, it’s another to do it without the understanding of the user.  There is a very clear difference between Facebook and Twitter in the minds of most people.  Rightly or wrongly, most people assume the former is a closed loop where only friends can view the information you share.  Twitter, on the other hand, is an open system and there is a certain expectation that everyone will have access to whatever you write.  With this in mind, you tend to be more considered in what you share on Twitter.  On Facebook, however, the tendency is to write whatever pops into your head because (supposedly) only your friends will see it.  The problem is that Facebook has seen the growth of Twitter and wants a piece of the action.  That means increasingly opening up content (your personal information) to the wider Internet community so you can ‘share’ (there’s an innocuous little term) with everyone.  You may be happy with that, you may not, but it’s something that people are going to have to get used to as long as they are on Facebook.  After all, whatever you post on there (pictures of your children, comments about your job, criticisms of your boss) doesn’t belong to you, it belongs to Facebook.  There’s a scary thought, eh?

Computing in the Clouds

Couple of things have got me thinking about cloud computing.  First the announcement that Microsoft 2010 will include online versions of Word, Excel etc.  This is obviously intended to compete with Google Docs (it would seem Microsoft are belatedly attempting to up their game what with cloud-based services and their recent deal with Yahoo!), and is another step towards a future where a hard drive is no longer required.  Which brings me to the second reason I have been mulling this one over recently.

I have recently been in the unfortunate situation of having my desktop computer die before my very eyes.  A deeply depressing and stressful moment.  What made this all the more stressful was that that, despite promising myself to maintain a rigorous back-up routine, I had failed to back-up data for several months.  Of course, this meant I lost loads of photos of our daughter, documents for my course and lots of other bits and bobs that would make my life meaningless without their existence (I exaggerate very slightly).  Anyway, as a result of this catastrophe, I began considering the benefits of using Google Docs for my assignments and pdf files.  It certainly made quite a difference as I could access my documents at home without needing to carry round a USB stick.  However, whilst there are a number of benefits (storage space, access from any computer etc), there are some things that are a concern.

When storing documents online, who do they really belong to? Are they your property, or the property of the company that is storing them?  We’ve seen numerous attempts by some networking sites to claim personal data as their own, what would stop them from doing the same with your documents? Not a lot I guess.  The other problem that springs to mind is what happens if the company storing your documents closes down?  Although this is pretty unlikely with Google or Microsoft, it is still a concern. What happens to your documents then?  Are they lost forever?  Also, as we have recently seen with the Kindle/Orwell debacle, there is an issue with privacy and security.  What is to stop an organisation accessing your online data and removing it as it deems fit?  What if it decides that the material you store is inappropriate and removes it from their servers?  This would be a disturbing move, essentially putting your data in the hands of a corporation.  At present I am torn between the immense benefits cloud computing would provide and concerns about privacy.  It will be interesting to see how these concerns are addressed (if at all) in the move towards computing in the clouds.