[Koha-devel] Circulation history anonymisation

[Ian Walls]

I am currently working on updating Paul Poulain's patch from 2009 to base
onto current HEAD.  This will give patrons the control over their own
reading history (keep forever, keep until the library manually deletes, or
anonymize instantly).

An additional level to this would be to add a new cronjob and system
preference to automatically anonymize circulation history over X days old.
Setting that to 0 would anonymize instantly on return, and leaving as NULL
would keep the current manual operation.

Thoughts?  This is getting away from the original purpose of this thread,
but I wanted to share that there is work being done on this currently, and
it should be released for community testing very shortly.


-Ian

On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 10:38 AM, Thomas Dukleth <kohadevel at agogme.com>wrote:

> Reply inline:
>
>
> Original subject: Re: [Koha-devel] OPAC Enhancement in Koha 3.4
>
> 1.  FEATURES BASED ON INDIVIDUAL CIRCULATION HISTORY.
>
> On Sun, December 26, 2010 18:03, David Schuster wrote:
> > These wold be great developments -
>
> The proposed features for using correlations of circulation history would
> produce some useful and interesting correlations which could have the
> advantage of using large passively acquired data sets.  However, passive
> circulation or purchase history, is a weak basis to inform patron title
> choice relative to a proper recommendation system using active
> recommendations and various meta-data sets.
>
> Despite the weakness of correlations from circulation history for the
> purpose of recommendations, if someone is interested in working on
> developing such features for Koha, then Koha should have such features
> provided they are properly labelled in some form.  "Patrons who borrowed
> this also borrowed those", would be an appropriate label for mere
> correlations from circulation history.  "Patrons recommend those", would
> be an inappropriate label for mere correlations from circulation history.
>
>
> 2.  PRIVACY USING CIRCULATION HISTORY.
>
> 2.1.  CIRCULATION HISTORY ANONYMISATION.
>
> > but then some of us have issues with
> > patron privacy...  We have parents and teachers asking for a "list of
> what
> > student X has checked out" we like to say this is not doable in Koha.
>
> Koha will need to constantly improve privacy to stay ahead of Big Brother
> and comply with privacy laws.  Just say no to data retention requests or
> data retention laws which may be passed and consult appropriate legal
> advocates if facing data retention mandates from government.
>
> The Koha administration interface has a circulation data anonymisation
> feature in Home > Tools > Patrons (anonymize, bulk-delete).  The tool
> calls C4::Circulation::AnonymiseIssueHistory from tools/cleanborrowers.pl,
>
> http://git.koha-community.org/gitweb/?p=koha.git;a=blob;f=tools/cleanborrowers.pl
> .
>
> In 2009, Paul Poulain had submitted a patch to allow patrons to protect
> the privacy of their own circulation history by setting the
> AnonymousPatron system preference and calling
> C4::Circulation::AnonymiseIssueHistory from a new script
> opac/opac-privacy.pl,
> http://lists.koha-community.org/pipermail/koha-patches/2009-May/003486.html
> .
>
> Both tools/cleanborrowers.pl and opac/opac-privacy.pl require some user to
> actively actuate a script for circulation history anonymisation.  A
> maintenance script run from cron is needed which would use a system
> preference for a period to keep circulation history which can be
> overridden by patrons as at least ether 'no preservation period' or
> 'preservation forever'.
>
> Backup files containing circulation history which has not been anonymised
> also need to be periodically erased and overwritten with multiple passes
> including a 'random' overwrite.
>
> You should presume that Big Brother might seize a dump of the database at
> some time in future against your protestations and perhaps without your
> knowledge.  Effort should be taken to minimise the harm in case of such a
> possible seizure.
>
>
> 2.2.  CIRCULATION HISTORY ANONYMISATION WITH CORRELATIONS TO TITLES.
>
> >  So
> > if
> > there was a way to hide the data but use it analytically that would be
> > fantastic.
>
> The suggested circulation history correlation features would need
> something of a feature for preserving circulation history with
> correlations between anonymised patrons and titles borrowed instead of
> only anonymous circulation history with no correlations.  Complete
> pseudonymous circulation history would be the equivalent to having no
> circulation history anonymisation for anyone with access to a full dump of
> the database and the source code.
>
> Only creating a new anonymous patron ID for holding circulation history as
> items are borrowed and/or each time patron circulation history is
> anonymised, would preserve any correlations between anonymised patrons and
> titles borrowed.  Preserving correlations for works, expressions, or
> manifestations would preserve anonymity better than preserving
> correlations to individual item barcodes.  Beware that even such
> anonymised correlations could be merely a thin veil of anonymity if the
> data set would be relatively small or the period between anonymisation
> actions relatively large.
>
> [...]
>
>
> Thomas Dukleth
> Agogme
> 109 E 9th Street, 3D
> New York, NY  10003
> USA
> http://www.agogme.com
> +1 212-674-3783
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Koha-devel mailing list
> Koha-devel at lists.koha-community.org
> http://lists.koha-community.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
> website : http://www.koha-community.org/
> git : http://git.koha-community.org/
> bugs : http://bugs.koha-community.org/
>



-- 
Ian Walls
Lead Development Specialist
ByWater Solutions
Phone # (888) 900-8944
http://bywatersolutions.com
ian.walls at bywatersolutions.com
Twitter: @sekjal
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </pipermail/koha-devel/attachments/20101227/21b936d3/attachment.htm>