Type: Privacy

"Privacy" is a major issue. In tech, privacy is shorthand for the management of personally identifiable information.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of the issue, because so many people are so casual about it. But good practices and compliance are a significant concern for folks who deal with this kind of information. Misunderstandings can get companies in trouble. Laws and expectations differ and change rapidly. Issues get "adjudicated" in the press. Compliance is a major concern and inhibiting factor in medical research.

The discussion can be catalyzed by working on a model privacy policy, in source format. The idea is:

• An immediately useful resource for companies (especially smaller ones).
• Rapid communication of policies to users (what is promised or not promised, what the community thinks of these promises).
• A target for the apposition of views of regulators, advocates, users and other constituencies.
• Group knowledge, continuous improvement.
• Dovetail the plethora of use-cases and legal regimes (legal interoperability).

Made real by working on actual policies (running code) and the tools of git, GitHub and CmA.Org.

As a start:

• There are some materials at: GitHub/CmA and CmA.Org.
• An outline of the issues, suggesting a taxonomy - CmA.Org
• It ties in with, and can be addressed with the same methods as patient Consents

This is an experiment in making "law" like software is made - by opt-in, iteration, forking and merging.