Monday, 28 June 2010

Education Blogging

I've managed to get an extension on that "Expectation of Privacy for Students Online" paper I'm supposedly writing.

In terms of digital privacy, the USA situation must be considered as most of the online services students use are hosted in the USA, and include statements in their end-user contracts assigning jurisdiction to the States, often, of Virginia or California.

The USA views privacy as a search and seizure issue for the most part, but has no equivalent to our Privacy Act so the law is a mish-mash. STill, as a basic principle, the expectation of privacy seems to depend on what steps are taken to assure it. These steps don't have to be effective, just reasonable. So lowering your voice in a restaurant, closing the door to your room, hanging "do not disturb" on a hotel room door, all indicate a reasonable expectation of privacy.

It seems pretty similar in NZ too. Though, here, privacy is structured around data control. This is fortunate since this language has anticipated, without meaning to, social changes in the way privacy is viewed as well as technological changes in the ways information is managed.

In both countries too, right to privacy must be balanced with freedom of speech.

More to come.

The opportunity to be mentored by someone of the calibre of Jim Ryan, as I am, is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime thing down in Kiwiland. Thus I am forcing myself to concentrate on this assignment rather than my personal problems. Those problems will not get solved any faster if I just chuck the paper, as I am tempted to do, after all. They will still be there waiting for me when it is all over. But I will delay starting on a Masters for a semester.

Now all I have to do is hold to that logic for a few more weeks.

I had a present today - a pair of Wood Pigeons joined me for breakfast: perched on a tree overlooking my balcony. They watched me photograph them (with my phone - I'll have to extract the images later when I figure out how) then both flew right up to me then on to the roof gutter. Wow!

Apart from that it has been wet.

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