Election Data

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:55 AM, Josh Boyer <jwboyer at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 21:08 -0400, seth vidal wrote:
>> On Fri, 2008-07-25 at 17:05 -0400, David Woodhouse wrote:
>> > I'd be very disappointed if we refused to release _anonymised_ vote data
>> > purely on the basis that we think there might be some nutter out there
>> > who wouldn't come out from under his table for a few days if we did so.
>>
>> I'd be disappointed if we were yet another data point of groups who do
>> not handle their users information w/care.
>>
>> It's such a cliche.
>
> Can you explain how it wouldn't be handled with care if it was
> anonymized?
>

The issue is that the board is the steward of the data. How long does
the data get kept (what is Fedora's data retention policy?) and who is
allowed access to it is something the board should consider. Not just
for useful research, but fishing expeditions by some British Ministry
to see if David Woodhouse was voting or going to the Dr on such a date
and can be held for an additional 40 days because he forgot to mention
that when questioned.  [Now David may think thats an ok situation, but
I would lose some sleep over it.. and I am just being selfish here.]

People may also have some 'legal' expectation of privacy unless told
otherwise by banners and signed agreements (updated CLA's). This would
also affect whether the board could give the data out (or have to do
some such thing that any member who comes from Netherlands can't have
their data aggregated with sets given out unless they were told it was
going to be done).

I have no problem with future election data being given away via some
approved anonymous data set, but I think that currently going ones and
past ones are closed



-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"