Post #1690754

Open letter to universities, specifically IT departments. Feel free to copy, modify, share, re-use. --------- The presidential administration has announced that they will 'find and deport' student protestors. There are also announced intentions to find and deport other groups, including students in those groups. It is important to note that these intentions, and any implementation of such plans, may or may not ultimately be ruled lawful and Constitutional, and the implementation may proceed regardless of lawfulness. In this context, maintaining records of surveillance on students (and other members of the university community) can be a significant risk. Such records can include location data (which may be correlated with e.g. protest locations), web browsing data, and metadata or contents of messages. These records might be demanded and/or accessed by agencies attempting to carry out the above intentions, including in an unlawful way. Even in a lawful context, the more data we collect and store, the more exposed we are to liability and ethical responsibility for downstream use of the data. Some universities engage in surveillance and data collection specifically around student protesting. These have even more potential to be complicit if such data is demanded and/or accessed. We therefore advocate that university IT departments move immediately to delete such data, minimize the amount collected, and minimize the length of time it is stored. By taking this action, we can minimize any liability, ethical responsibility, and potential for unintended consequences of collecting and storing the data.