Welcome to the Privacy and Confidentiality Section!
The Privacy & Confidentiality Section provides a forum for the discussion of privacy and confidentiality issues and their legal and ethical implications for archival practice. The Section convenes during the annual meeting to announce elected officers and hold a program. Topics have ranged from third-party privacy in literary papers, access to medical records, and the types of restrictions placed on archival records.
The Section's ongoing focus has been the maintenance of a bibliography of privacy and confidentiality-related resources. Other Section projects include Privacy and Confidentiality Perspectives: Archivists and Archival Issues, edited by section members Menzi Behrndt-Klodt and Peter Wosh, and "Choose Privacy Week."
Membership in the Section is open to all SAA members who are interested in privacy and confidentiality issues.
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Log in to the SAA webpage and select your preferred subscription type for SAA Privacy and Confidentiality Section Discussion List.
News & Announcements
Thank you to everyone who shared and participated in the 2024 Privacy and Confidentiality Section election call for candidates! We appreciate all of the nominations that we received. Please take some time to review the candidate statements and get to know them.
Thanks to all the candidates who ran in this election and thanks to all the members who voted and submitted comments. Your participation is vital to the success of P&C!
Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2023 Privacy & Confidentiality Section election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them.
Following a brief business meeting, we will host an informal, unrecorded open discussion about privacy and confidentiality in archives. We will use Padlet to guide the discussion. An anonymous posting option will be available.
The Privacy and Confidentiality Section meeting, to be held on Zoom on Aug. 2nd from 1-2:30 Central, will feature two presentations in addition to the business meeting. UC San Diego Library Program Director of Scholarship Tools and Methods Heather Briston will present “Navigating privacy, confidentiality, and sensitivity in backlog and older collections”; Bentley Historical Library Lead Archivist for University Archives Aprille Cooke McKay will present “Negotiating a new access policy for the academic records of deceased students at the University of Michigan.” These presentations will be followed by time for audience Q&A. While the business meeting portion of the Section meeting will be recorded and made available for those unable to attend, the presentations and Q&A will not be recorded.
Thank you to all of our excellent candidates for standing in the 2022 Privacy & Confidentiality Section election. Please take some time to review their candidate statements and get to know them.
The Privacy and Confidentiality Section would like to invite you to a joint coffee chat, hosted by the College & University Archives Section Steering Committee! We will meet on Zoom on March 23rd, 2022, at 12pm CST, 1pm EST.
Digital preservationist and software developer Tessa Walsh will present a demo of Bulk Reviewer, an application that supports the identification, review, and removal of sensitive digital files.
