Data analytics tools seen as potential threat to privacy and trust
SANTA CRUZ — A local grand jury setting out to determine whether or not the countywide library system violated state law by uploading patron data to the cloud came up empty-handed this week.
The resulting report “Patron Privacy at Santa Cruz Public Libraries: Trust and Transparency in the Age of Data Analytics,” released amid a flurry of grand jury reports this week, concluded that the use of a socioeconomic data analytics tool is permitted, provided the third-party vendor is working in service of the library. Under particular scrutiny was Santa Cruz’s past use of “Analytics on Demand,” a software tool by Cengage firm Gale available to the library system through its membership in the Bay Area consortium Pacific Library Partnership, which the library used to plan programs and services.
The 19-member volunteer Santa Cruz Civil Grand Jury did find, however, that Santa Cruz Public Libraries did not sufficiently communicate its use of the data analytics tool, nor allow patrons to opt in or out of the data collection, among other concerns. At the core of the report’s review was the pronouncement that outside data analytics tools generally are “a potential threat to patron privacy and trust” for libraries.
WHAT’S AT STAKE
To use Analytics on Demand, a library would export patron information such as physical address and date of last checkout to the program’s cloud service. The company then “blends and augments this patron information with the Experian Mosaic profile and U.S. census data for each household,” the grand jury report states.
“This tool aggregates more than 300 data factors at the household level-information not provided to the Library by the patron,” the report noted. “These factors include household income, education levels, number and age of children, number of years at residence, spending habits and web browsing behavior.”
Library systems nationwide are debating how and if library patrons’ personal information should be used, with the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom titling their annual Choose Privacy Week awareness effort in 2018 as “Big Data is Watching You.” The agency posed concerns, asking if the new era of data collection has become “another form of surveillance” and whether or not aggregated data is truly anonymous.
“In the library community especially, the right of library users to keep private their use of library resources has traditionally long been a hallmark of the ALA’s principles, embedded in its ‘Library Bill of Rights’ and actively promoted by ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee and its Privacy Subcommittee,” the office wrote in a May 2018 release. “But those rights and protections are increasingly being challenged by the use of ‘big data’: library patron information that is bundled up, aggregated and usually (but not always) anonymized for varied purposes including trend analyses, grant funding, and reporting to local governments.”
SOFTWARE NOT IN USE
Library Director Susan Nemitz said Thursday that the libraries placed a moratorium on using the data software last year after the system’s workers raised concerns, and in March, the library management team opted to cease its use altogether.
“I think, like most libraries across the country, we’re using more and more third-party vendors, software vendors. In order to do that, they end up getting some data on the patrons and we sign contracts saying, ‘you can’t sell or use this data,'” Nemitz said. “For example, when you get an e-book from the library, you’re actually going to a third-party vendor’s website.”
Nemitz estimated the library used the analytics tool about five times, with insufficient staffing expertise to manage more consistent use seen in larger library systems, she said. Examples of its use in Santa Cruz include sussing out whether or not the libraries are serving sufficient patrons who are low-income and/or persons of color; the best geographic location to put temporary library programs while Capitola’s new library is built; and a direct-mailing effort for the system’s history programs.
“I know Oakland’s been using it, I know Sacramento’s been using it and they use it — because libraries collect no data on their patrons, they use it to understand whether they’re serving all the populations we say we’re serving,” Nemitz said.
RESPONSE
The 10-library system’s overseeing governance, the Santa Cruz City/County Libraries Joint Powers Authority Board, approved this month an update to its patron library records and data privacy policy. The grand jury report cites several instances where its authors believe the policy does not go far enough, focusing on more clarity around the library’s plans for future patron-targeted marketing efforts, requirement of patron consent and clear and concise descriptions of patrons’ data usage.
In light of the report’s findings, Nemitz said she will bring the updated policy and grand jury report to the citizen-based Library Advisory Commission for discussion. The library system also now offers patrons online information on what third-party vendors the libraries’ partner with, “so at least the public can inform themselves if they have some concerns.”
The difference between commercial booksellers and public libraries, said Capitola City Manager Jamie Goldstein, is that companies track customers’ buying and browsing history and are able to tailor their services with specific recommendations. Goldstein, who serves on the library Joint Powers Authority, said he believed Santa Cruz, as with library systems nationwide, might benefit from looking at offering patrons the option to form their own reading lists.
“Talking to a lot of people that I know, they’ll often just resort to Amazon because of the ease of use, which is kind of crazy, to think that we have our public library system here that has books for free, and often people would rather pay, just because it’s harder to find that next read,” Goldstein said.
June 30, 2019
Santa Cruz Sentinel
By Jessica A. York
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