Privacy literacy instruction practices in academic libraries: Past, present, and possibilities

Abstract

This article explores the past, present, and possibilities of privacy and privacy literacy (PL) instruction in academic libraries. It surveys the scholarship on privacy and privacy literacy from the domains of philosophy, anthropology, history, law, education, and LIS. A privacy conceptual model is proposed demonstrating the zones of informational agency that privacy preserves, and a timeline of privacy and libraries documents key developments in privacy culture in the US. Findings from an original exploratory survey of privacy literacy instruction practices in academic libraries are discussed. The survey identifies the rationales, topics, contexts, methods, and assessments academic librarians use in delivering privacy literacy instruction, as well as barriers against privacy literacy that they encounter. The article concludes with a case study explicating the authors’ own privacy literacy instruction experiences, and specific recommendations for overcoming the barriers to delivering privacy literacy instruction in academic libraries identified in the survey findings.

Online privacy literacy and users' information privacy empowerment: the case of GDPR in Europe

“…(2023) revealed that many users reported feelings of powerlessness and lack of control in protecting their own data. This coincides with findings in other relevant literature (Hartman-Caverly and Chisholm, 2023; Hagendorff, 2018).…”

Digital Shred: Case Study of a Remote Privacy Literacy Collaboration

“…12 Hartman-Caverly and Chisholm find that data profiling and consumer privacy topics are most commonly featured in privacy literacy instruction, which pays less attention to surveillance and intellectual freedom concerns. 13 Project Information Literacy reports that many students make deliberate decisions with respect to online disclosure and privacy protections, and recommends that students learn about the privacy-related concept of algorithmic justice. 14 Hagendorff offers four critiques of common approaches to privacy literacy.…”

“…19 Informed by these critiques, Hartman-Caverly and Chisholm propose privacy literacy instruction informed by a conceptual model centered on the positive role of privacy in the human experience, rather than on data flows or digital technologies. 20 Their privacy literacy efforts highlight the role of privacy in identity, intellect, bodily and contextual integrity, intimacy, social interaction, and voluntary isolation, noting that privacy is about respect for persons-not just protection of data. 21 Responding to Hartman-Caverly and Chisholm's call for increased scholarly communication about privacy literacy efforts in academic libraries, this qualitative, evaluative case study examines an original privacy literacy workshop designed with these principles in mind.…”

“…Privacy literacy, understood as "a suite of knowledge, behaviors, and critical dispositions regarding the information constructs of selfhood, expressive activities, and relationships," is a growing opportunity for information literacy instruction in academic libraries. 1 Privacy literacy instruction presents the positive case for privacy in the human experience, and seeks to enhance technosolutionist privacy training that focuses on front-end privacy settings and technologies by cultivating students' capacities for situational awareness, critical thinking, self-reflection, and judgment. Informed by student-centered learning design, privacy literacy instruction can also resist a prescriptive or proscriptive approach to privacy and technology use in order to respect students' autonomy, values, and lived experiences.…”

Toward a new framework for teaching algorithmic literacy

“…Various additional activities were proposed to enhance the algorithmic literacy of noncomputer science students. These activities included manipulating algorithms on platforms like Facebook and YouTube (Gallagher, 2017), analyzing trends in Amazon recommendations (Koenig, 2020), reflecting on social media friends and followers (Koenig, 2020), investigating personal advertising data profiles (Clark, 2018; Gardner, 2019; Koenig, 2020), experimenting with online privacy tools (Hartman-Caverly and Chisholm, 2020), using pseudocode for coding decisions (Clark, 2018), visualizing hidden variables impacting search results (Clark, 2018; Fouquaert and Mechant, 2021) and examining personalization and bias in Google search and image results (Fisher, 2017; Gardner, 2019; Hobbs, 2020; Koenig, 2020). Also, Bakke (2020) suggested a search reflection assignment to highlight bias in students’ own search habits and illustrate how they routinely delegated the processes of source evaluation and selection to algorithms.…”