Remove notices from patron accounts
We try so hard to anonymize. It would be nice to be able to purge patron "attachments" after a certain amount of time.
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The May 2017 Release includes the ability to define the retention of letter attachments for each letter individually. See here for more details: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/0099_2017/May_2017/Alma_May_2017_Release_Notes/07Administration_and_Infrastructure_-_May_2017_Enhancements#Email_Attachment_Retention.2FPurge
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Chelle Batchelor commented
Hi Sue, thank you for bringing this up. I believe that the ability to purge attachments is essential to our ability to protect our patrons’ privacy. For those of us who send the Borrowing Activity Letter, the details that are preserved in these attachments basically negate the usefulness of loan anonymization. While you can’t see who borrowed a book from within the item record, you can still see everything a patron has borrowed within the attachments in their patron record. While we know Ex Libris takes account security seriously and so do our staff, the fact is, as long as the information is there it can be accessed. If it’s not there, it can’t.
I think what we need is a customizable way to purge different types of attachments on different schedules. For example, we might want to purge the Borrowing Activity Letters on a daily or weekly basis, but only purge overdue, recall, and billing notices once per year.
I’d also like to point out that there are several statements on the ALA website about the importance of limiting the information Libraries keep about our patrons. This page on privacy is just one example:
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/qa-privacy
“In protecting the privacy rights and the confidentiality rights of library users, librarians, staff, educators, volunteers, and trustees should limit the degree to which personally identifiable information is monitored, collected, disclosed, and distributed while fulfilling their duty to comply with their state’s library confidentiality statute”
“Librarians should consult with their attorneys or school district legal counsel to develop policies that limit the degree to which personally identifiable information is monitored, collected, retained, disclosed, and distributed.”