Privacy and google's cache.

[Pete Hickey <pete () SHADOWS UOTTAWA CA>]

We just had an interesting case here.  Interesting with Ontario's law,
at least.

For those who are not very young, you will remember when student's
privacy was not an issue.  Graduating classes would have their names
and pictures on the wall, class lists posted everywhere..  When I taught,
I used to post marks on my door, as did most other profs.

Then came the net.  So people started posting marks on the net.  Some
people did it from their personal (home) ISP account.  These would be
left up for a while, then removed.

But they were removed after google had sucked them up and cached them.

Then privacy started becoming more of a concern and privacy laws were
enacted.

And people stopped doing that.

But they stayed in google's cache.

We have at least one issue of a 6 year old class list (names, marks)
which is still in google's cache.  Fortunately in this case the
proff is still around and still has the same ISP account.

But think of the potential problems.

How much and what does google have?  Not easy to search for something
like that.

How many profs have done this?  While full time proffs tend to use
University resources, part time profs often used their own.

The potential ugliness of having something similar when the former
prof is dead, changed ISPs, left with very bad feelings, etc.  Getting
something our of google's cache in that case could just be ubly.

Note:  I'm not interested in the legality/liability of someone doing
something that was legal, at the time.  I'm more interested in having
the right thing done now.






--
Pete Hickey
The University of Ottawa               lbh ner byq vs lbh erzrzore ebg13
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada                                   naq n trrx vs lbh qrpelcgrq vg.