Vol. 3 No. 2 (2018)
Peer Reviewed Articles

Skills for Private Life: A review and multi-site case study of digital privacy initiatives in UK public libraries

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  • Camille Pryal-Regnault
Camille Pryal-Regnault
University College London
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21173/newlibs/5/18

Published 2018-11-12

Keywords

  • threat model, mass surveillance, intellectual privacy, encryption, digital inclusion, cryptoparties, big data

How to Cite

Pryal-Regnault, C. (2018). Skills for Private Life: A review and multi-site case study of digital privacy initiatives in UK public libraries. Journal of New Librarianship, 3(2), 297–368. https://doi.org/10.21173/newlibs/5/18

Abstract

Digital inclusion – a proposal to provide equal opportunities access to the benefits of the Internet – is a national initiative supported by 3000 public libraries in the UK. This article focuses on the activities of exemplary public library services in the UK, in order to report on the character of their digital privacy initiatives and in doing so, identify their rationales. The research explores their relevance to existing service strategies, the risks and barriers to implementation, and the potential for wider replication within the UK and produced a number of key findings: responses confirmed that each of the libraries had collaborated with an outside organisation to offer digital privacy initiatives, including ‘cryptoparties’; all of the respondents largely agreed that public libraries should engage with digital privacy issues as part of their commitment to library ethics and in order to support users make informed decisions.

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