Library Freedom Project Helps Patrons Protect Themselves Online – WSHU

Advocates for digital privacy are finding allies among librarians.

The Library Freedom Project trains librarians and advocates for measures that protect privacy, like laws banning facial recognition software.

Founder Alison Macrina spoke this week at Yale Law School. She said the project began in 2013 after leaks by CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed extensive surveillance programs.

I just got really interested in the surveillance and privacy problem, not just what we learned from Snowden but the specific ways that high-level stuff impacts local communities.

Macrina says librarians can help people make their passwords more secure, protect their data from corporations like Google and Facebook, and even guard themselves from online stalkers.

She says privacy and intellectual freedom are among their professional standards.

Public librarians in particular have these spaces that anybody can come and use. If you want to walk into a public library, you dont have to be a taxpayer. You dont have to have a home or a job.

The program has trained more than 40 librarians across the country.

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Library Freedom Project Helps Patrons Protect Themselves Online - WSHU