4 ms·

Maybe stamping names has fallen out of fashion for data protection reasons. I seem to recall disquiet about the US federal government's access to library record

Maybe stamping names has fallen out of fashion for data protection reasons. I seem to recall disquiet about the US federal government's access to library records under the George W Bush administration. Maybe some people would be similarly unhappy with their fellow library users knowing which books they'd borrowed. On a similar note, my university used to operate an alumni directory (open to all alumni), and the local paper used to publish the names of all graduates. Both were stopped without any stated reason, but I wonder whether they were judged to violate data protection law or implicated in harassment.

tzs 5y ago
It's almost certainly due to data protection. That was much less of a concern before the end of the last century, because access to public records was generally much more work than it is now. Records were usually either only on paper or if on computer that computer was only accessible to staff. In the case of my county's library system if someone wanted my checkout history they would have to send someone to the library and go through all the books on the shelves looking at the checkout cards to see if my name and library card number were there. Generally no one would be that interested in most of us. Unless they had a strong reason to specifically be interested in me it was not worth the effort, and generally if I was doing something that would likely cause someone to take such a strong interest I'd know it and could avoid doing things that left those records. Nowadays, with public records on networked computers accessible via the internet, indexed and cross referenced and archived for eternity, so that anyone who has even a fleeting interest for any random reason in you can quickly and easily find it all, you have to operate as if everyone you draw even the slightest attention from might look everything up. Another example would be newspapers. As far as I know my name and photo have been published in newspapers twice. It is remotely possible that the second time could be found via an online search, but I'm pretty sure the first time could only now be found by going to the newspaper in question and going through their old microfiche archives in person. Neither of these were for bad things, but suppose that first time was something bad. It only made the local news, so all I'd have to do is move somewhere else and I could have a fresh start. Maybe I would have to avoid jobs that require a stringent enough background check to send investigators to scour the newspaper archives of every past place I've lived, but aside from that my mistake could stay in my past. Nowadays your past mistakes if they get into the public record can follow you for the rest of your life unless you do a complete identity change. So now we have to be very careful to make sure nothing that might be seen as mistake (by today's standards or any future standards over the rest of your life!) gets into the record in the first place.

tzs 5y ago

It's almost certainly due to data protection. That was much less of a concern before the end of the last century, because access to public records was generally much more work than it is now. Records were usually either only on paper or if on computer that computer was only accessible to staff. In the case of my county's library system if someone wanted my checkout history they would have to send someone to the library and go through all the books on the shelves looking at the checkout cards to see if my name and library card number were there. Generally no one would be that interested in most of us. Unless they had a strong reason to specifically be interested in me it was not worth the effort, and generally if I was doing something that would likely cause someone to take such a strong interest I'd know it and could avoid doing things that left those records. Nowadays, with public records on networked computers accessible via the internet, indexed and cross referenced and archived for eternity, so that anyone who has even a fleeting interest for any random reason in you can quickly and easily find it all, you have to operate as if everyone you draw even the slightest attention from might look everything up. Another example would be newspapers. As far as I know my name and photo have been published in newspapers twice. It is remotely possible that the second time could be found via an online search, but I'm pretty sure the first time could only now be found by going to the newspaper in question and going through their old microfiche archives in person. Neither of these were for bad things, but suppose that first time was something bad. It only made the local news, so all I'd have to do is move somewhere else and I could have a fresh start. Maybe I would have to avoid jobs that require a stringent enough background check to send investigators to scour the newspaper archives of every past place I've lived, but aside from that my mistake could stay in my past. Nowadays your past mistakes if they get into the public record can follow you for the rest of your life unless you do a complete identity change. So now we have to be very careful to make sure nothing that might be seen as mistake (by today's standards or any future standards over the rest of your life!) gets into the record in the first place.