confidentiality

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,
  As we move into the era of video linked to annotations and
transcriptions, issues of confidentiality become an increasing concern.
People who would be happy to donate their transcript data to CHILDES
might have serious second thoughts about donating the related audio or
video data.  How can we deal with legitimates concerns about speaker
confidentiality and still maintain international scientific
collaboration for the study of verbal interaction?
   I would like to propose an approach that focuses on levels of
confidentiality with the strictest level being no access at all and the
the loosest level being full access.  In particular, I think we could
distinguish 6 major levels.  I would like to get people's comments on
this idea and whether it would work to successfully address the
confidentiality issue.  Feel free to think in terms of all sorts of
perspectives, including scholars, subjects, government officials,
citizen advocates, lawyers, humanists, and the like.  Please post your
comments directly to info-childes, unless you think it is not
appropriate to do so.  Does this proposal succeed in "solving the
problem".  Do we need additional mechanisms?   Here is the specific
proposal:

Level 1:  Data would be fully public domain (CNN, public speeches,
public interviews, etc.) and generally viewable and copyable over the
Internet.
Level 2: Placing data on this level would open general viewing and
listening to the public across the Internet, but would block copying.
Level 3:  This level would restrict access to academic researchers who
had signed a non-disclosure form.  This form would set tight standards
regarding avoidance of use of personal names when required.  It would
allow some temporary copying or downloading of the data for local
analysis, but would require that downloaded files be deleted after a
specific period and never further copied or distributed.
Level 4:  This level would restrict access to academics who had signed
non-disclosure forms.  In addition, it would totally disallow copying.
Level 5:  Data on this level could be viewed only after the original
data collector had given approval over the Internet for the particular
researcher.
Level 6:  This level would only allow viewing and listening in
controlled conditions under the direct on-line supervision of the
particular researcher.
Level 7:  This level would only allow viewing and listening in
controlled conditions under the direct, in person, supervision of the
particular researcher.
Level 8:  These data would not be viewable, but would be
archived in the format of the general system for use by the original
investigator only.

I wonder if this level system would not only work to maintain
confidentiality, but also to support the "legitimate interests of the
original data collector."

Please comment on this important issue.  If you can think of other fora
for discussing this issue, that would be good to mention too.

--Brian MacWhinney