NYC Digital Safety

What To Expect From This Training

This training is designed to give you basic information about data privacy and data security to use in your interactions with patrons. And, for situations that this training does not cover, we provide lists of resources and organizations to which you can refer patrons for more in-depth information and expert advice. Now let’s take a look at the topics covered in this training.

There are seven short modules in this training. After this introductory module, you’ll go on to module 2 to learn about internet technologies. In module 3 you’ll learn who may collect your data online, and how you can connect securely. In module 4 you’ll learn how to secure your accounts and devices. In module 5, you’ll learn how to prevent online tracking. Module 6 covers how to avoid scams and malware. And module 7 takes a closer look at data security issues specific to the library context.

We anticipate that you’ll use your learnings on digital safety in a variety of interactions with patrons, both in person, and remotely.

This training is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to learners from all levels. Within each module, you’ll periodically be asked to pause the video for a short activity or reflection. Each module wraps up with a short quiz. Each module also includes a resource list for further exploration.

Throughout this training, you’ll consider the topics and concepts in terms of scenarios similar to the ones you’ll encounter in your work. You’ll also see quotes from real people who were interviewed by for a project called Our Data Bodies, which collects stories of surveillance and data-based discrimination across the US, and is assembling a workbook of activities on data, surveillance, and community safety. We encourage you to think about digital safety both in terms of the individuals you interact with in libraries and in the context of the broader communities to which they belong.

We understand that library staff are not — and cannot be — experts in all aspects of digital safety. This training is designed to give you confidence in answering patron questions about digital security, or referring them to good resources. We hope this training encourages your curiosity about digital security, as the landscape will certainly change as new technologies emerge. Scenarios are included to show the varied contexts for digital security.

The Library Context

Along with many opportunities, internet use presents many new challenges and risks. As ever, library staff are responsible for safeguarding patron data in library databases, and during in-person interactions in the libraries.

As library staff, we are entrusted with protecting the personal information that patrons reveal when they access library services, ranging from a patrons’ personal data to information about their interests, their beliefs, and their values.

The rise of the internet brings a range of new tools and social spaces, enabling us build complex online lives. Many of us may now go online to learn new skills, find jobs or homes, access vital public services, create relationships, express ourselves and our cultures, and build and transform our communities.

Through a variety of city initiatives, tens of thousands of New Yorkers from varied communities and life experiences are now coming online for the first time. The City of New York is aiming to deliver affordable, reliable broadband to every New Yorker by 2025. As a result, more and more New Yorkers will come to public libraries to learn new digital skills, access digital materials, and seek answers to their questions about internet technologies.

Library staff have a new role in helping patrons understand what may happen to their data online, whether they connect here at the library, or go online on their personal computers, phones or tablets. There are risks and value exchanges that come with using online tools and platforms. Risks to personal and community privacy will change as apps, devices, and other technologies evolve.

Libraries — and library staff like you — are in a unique position to help protect patron privacy and intellectual freedom.

The American Library Association’s Code of Ethics highlights our responsibility for user privacy and confidentiality.

Key Terms

Before we dive into the rest of the training, let’s define some key terms and concepts. We’ll use these terms throughout the training.

In this training, we’re concerned with personal data that describes individuals and their lives, such as birth dates, social security numbers, credit card numbers, home addresses, school or medical records, and more.

It’s important that our definitions include the idea of use, whether its for “reference or analysis” or to “locate, identify, and contact.” All data is information collected for use. Keep this in mind throughout this training.

Because we now use computers for nearly all information storage and management tasks, most data is digital. All the examples we’ve mentioned so far exist in digital form, as do many more. An image or “like” added to a social media post, the log of transactions on a bank account, a record of a website visit, the location of your cell phone recorded by GPS, or the information listed on a drugstore receipt for a debit card transaction — these too are digital data.

Pause the video here, and take a moment to reflect on the questions here. Jot down the types (but not specifics) of digital data you’ve shared. Think of activities like social media, web browsing, using a credit card to make a purchase, and so on.

Privacy is a familiar concept. It can be defined as: a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people; the state of being free from public attention. In the physical world, we often have a innate sense of when we are “in private.” Our bodies, our homes, our words, thoughts or feelings are hidden, safe, and unobserved. We may choose to share what’s private with others we trust… or not. And, in the physical world, we often feel intensely when our privacy has been violated.

In online spaces — unlike in the physical world — our sense of what is “private” can be harder to understand. We may not always know who has access to the data we share. We may not know if data is being collected and by whom. Learning how our data travels through the internet and how it is used can help us gain more control over online privacy. We’ll cover this in module 2.

Businesses, governments, academic institutions, and individuals all may have an interest in collecting and using our data. And there are laws and policies that specify how and when data can be collected and used. Our “data privacy” is determined by our own perceptions and actions, the actions of those who want to use our data, laws and policies around data, and of course, the changing technologies we use to connect.

Another important term, particularly in the library context, is confidentiality. Confidentiality is the obligation of an individual, organization or business to protect personal information and not misuse or wrongfully disclose that information.

Pause the video here, do the activity, and take a moment to reflect on the questions here.

This training is designed to help build your understanding and awareness of your own digital security, and the risks and value exchanges you may encounter online– both for yourself, and in order to assist patrons, who will likely have a different set of needs and concerns. No matter how it is expressed, an individual’s right to control and maintain online privacy is just as meaningful and self-affirming as the right to privacy in the physical world.