More than a week – 'Choose Privacy' is now an everyday choice

CHICAGO - Beginning this week, the American Library Association's “Choose Privacy” website has a new look and a new URL — chooseprivacyeveryday.org — which emphasizes the importance of preserving patron privacy and data security in today’s libraries every day of the year.

Since 2010, ALA’s “Choose Privacy” website has served as a valuable source of news, information, resources and programming related to privacy, confidentiality and data security in the digital world.

Now rebranded as "Choose Privacy Every Day," it continues to serve as a central, go-to reference source on privacy for librarians, library patrons, and the public.

Though the name has changed, the website will still be the home of ALA’s Choose Privacy Week, held annually on May 1-7. This year’s theme — “Big Data is Watching You” — featured a kick-off webinar that offered libraries detailed guidance on conducting a privacy audit, while an online symposium considered the ethics and issues raised by the use of “big data” in libraries.

Here’s a brief summary of what’s changed as well as what’s coming in the future:

• The “Choose Privacy Week” website has morphed into “Choose Privacy Every Day” to emphasize the site's evolving role as a place for year-round, up-to-date content and news on privacy and data security.
• The site’s URL has changed from chooseprivacyweek.org to chooseprivacyeveryday.org. (Visitors to the old URL will be automatically redirected to the new URL.)
• The “Choose Privacy Every Day” website will continue to serve as a one-stop resource for libraries, librarians and the public, providing information, resources and news about privacy and data security.
• There will be a forthcoming privacy-training curriculum — courtesy of Data & Society Institute —published on the website that will augment existing training materials for libraries and library users.
• A new layout and architecture will be added that will guide users to specific content.
• New resources will be uploaded to the website to help libraries and librarians celebrate the next Choose Privacy Week in May 2019!

The "Choose Privacy Every Day" website will continue to broaden its reach to a growing audience that stretches beyond the library community.

The “Choose Privacy Every Day” website is maintained by the ALA Intellectual Freedom Committee’s Privacy Subcommittee and the Office for Intellectual Freedom. The website advances the fundamental mission of the IFC and its Privacy Subcommittee: to monitor developments in technology, politics and legislation that impact user privacy and confidentiality in libraries and throughout the world.