Politically Sensitive Data
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Digital content where the knowledge to preserve exists, and there is no threat to obsolescence, but where political interests may be served by elimination, falsification or concealment. |
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Digital Species: Political Data |
Trend in 2023:
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Consensus Decision |
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Added to List: 2017 |
Trend in 2024:
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Previously: Critically Endangered |
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Imminence of Action Immediate action necessary. Where detected should be stabilized and reported as a matter of urgency. |
Significance of Loss The loss of tools, data or services within this group would impact on people and sectors around the world. |
Effort to Preserve | Inevitability It would require a major effort to prevent or reduce losses in this group, possibly requiring the development of new preservation tools or techniques. |
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Examples Online News; social media and web-based campaigning; social media relating to 2016 UK/EU referendum; Promises made in Scottish independence referendum 2014; US Environmental Data; UK Public Finance Initiative (PFI) documents; Recordings of Leinster House. |
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‘Practically Extinct’ in the Presence of Aggravating Conditions Opaque terms and conditions that facilitate deletion or obfuscation; lack of access to web-harvesting; significant lobby interest; change of administration; data resides in single jurisdiction; reputational risk to collecting institution; uncertainty over IPR or the presence of orphaned works. |
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‘Endangered’ in the Presence of Good Practice Robust political archives; robust preservation services for investigative journalists. |
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2023 Review This entry was added in 2017 with additional comment and contextualization offered by the 2019 Jury. The 2019 Jury agreed that the nature and extent of political campaigning online continue to become more apparent, drawing attention to the manipulation of digital media but not explicitly the issue of deliberate deletion, alteration or concealment. They further noted that GDPR provides a pretext for the disposal of records, and that the increased capability of archives to secure the content from outgoing governments and ministers was a source of encouragement. Nonetheless, they pointed to a pressing need for a deep and comprehensive assessment of the risks faced by politically sensitive data and the impact which such deletions have on the public good. The 2020 Jury added a 2020 trend towards greater risk based on 2020 as a year of significant political and economic upheaval, in part because of the pandemic though also because of popular protest and the outcomes of elections around the world. Moreover it had been widely reported that senior officials in government have avoided scrutiny and record-keeping laws by using self-deleting messaging applications. The 2021 and 2022 reviews also identified trends towards greater risk based on the continuation and increase of significant political and economic upheaval. Moreover, they added how it had been widely reported that senior officials in government have avoided scrutiny and record-keeping laws by using self-deleting messaging applications. In those circumstances, politically sensitive records were likely to be at greater risk. The 2022 Taskforce agreed, and noted the significance of elimination, falsification or concealment in light of political upheaval, social and economic inequalities and climate change. The case of political upheaval and protest in Iran had further amplified the risks, and anonymous digital art and social media activism had burgeoned in response to gendered violence and acts of political repression in the latter half of the year. However, preservation infrastructures, such as national libraries and collecting archives within universities are conflicted, therefore unlikely, unable or unwilling to preserve content that is explicitly and radically critical of the regime. For those reasons there was a 2022 trend toward even greater risk. The 2023 Council agreed with the Critically Endangered classification with overall risks remaining on the same basis as before (‘No change’ to trend). They also provided discussion and comments around GDPR abuses. GDPR can be abused for blocking access to public records and political data. The existence of ‘special category data’ under GDPR is used to justify denying access even to people’s own data. These justifications usually do not reflect the reality of how GDPR works at all, but it is used as a way to shut down these challenges. |
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2024 Interim Review These risks remain on the same basis as before, with no significant trend towards even greater or reduced risk (‘No change’ to trend). |
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Additional Comments There is a question of whether it is the duty of archives/libraries to preserve the falsification but to instead preserve the constituent pieces to allow researchers to infer elimination, falsification or concealment. See also:
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No Change