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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 24, 2014 5:44:39 GMT -6
The Communications Privacy Act WHEREAS, it is vitally important that our citizens are able to give informed consent as to how their e-mail address is to be used, and WHEREAS, the present arrangement is based off the idea of tacit and passive, not informed consent, and WHEREAS, informed consent is better because that way people know what they’re agreeing to, and WHEREAS, details such as one’s e-mail address are actually quite important, and WHEREAS, if you asked most people if they’d be happy to share their e-mail address with anyone if they stump up a small fee, they’d probably say that was a little dodgy, and WHEREAS, this bill ONLY stops party leaders from seeing a citizen's e-mail address without their consent, not the Chancery, now THEREFORE, be it enacted by the Ziu that Lex.D.8.5, which currently reads is amended as follows: 8.5.6 which reads is hereby amended to read A new sub-sub-section shall be added to follow 8.5.3 which shall read D.8.5.4, D.8.5.5, and D.8.5.6 are renumbered accordingly. Noi urent q’estadra så,C. Carlüs Xheraltescù (MC-Lib) Lüc da Schir (MC-MRPT) |
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Nov 24, 2014 6:10:13 GMT -6
I think you left out the chunk of text that replaces the first chunk of text. Maybe misformatted the "quote" tag or something?
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 24, 2014 7:01:30 GMT -6
No, I'm saying that I'm making the following changes to that nice big blog of text. It's for reference, and I suspect I will change it slightly closer to the time of submission, but I thought it would be useful for anyone who wanted to comment on it. Look again, because all the changes I recommend relate to the section I quoted.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Nov 24, 2014 9:18:06 GMT -6
Oh, you're right! Yeah, I just misread.
I do have a substantive problem here. The Chancery database is the only way we have of contacting citizens, and I'm not sure citizens should be allowed to opt-out of contact by the Government or the Ziu. As I see it, the whole system here is basically a way to substitute electronic mail for the paper mail that most countries would use. We use email because we have a majority cybercitizenry and because paper mail would be expensive to use, but the basic principles I think we need to retain are these:
-You need to be able to get mail of some kind from the country, for many purposes.
-Party leaders should be able to contact a majority of people to advertise parties to them.
I think we definitely must continue to request email addresses from citizens and put them in the database, but I could see a version where they could also need to be "flagged" as contactable to get electoral mail. But I worry that implementing that would be very difficult, since I've seen how it's currently done and we already had a lot of problems under the current simpler system.
I can't support this version, ultimately, at the least. The Chancery needs to be able to email people.
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 24, 2014 9:37:40 GMT -6
You misunderstand, I am not saying that the Chancery should not have a database with citizens' e-mails. I am saying that for the 'election database' that is mentioned in law, that citizens e-mail addresses are only available to party leaders if they have specifically consented for them to see them.
Party leaders do need to contact people to advertise those parties, and if a citizen does not consent for their e-mail address to just be handed out to people, then they can always be contacted via the forum.
Please tell me how this is prohibited by this act.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Nov 24, 2014 9:50:23 GMT -6
Hmm... this is not a good day for reading comprehension for me.
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Dame Litz Cjantscheir, UrN
Puisne Justice; Chancellor of the Royal Talossan Bar; Cunstaval to Florencia
Dame & Former Seneschal
Posts: 1,157 
Talossan Since: 4-5-2010
Dame Since: 9-8-2012
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Post by Dame Litz Cjantscheir, UrN on Nov 24, 2014 11:16:06 GMT -6
Firstly, I personally would be against removing the "opt out" clause as I would like the peace of mind knowing that if I can voluntarily opt in, I have a statutory right to voluntarily opt out as well. I think the amendment could be better worded to allow voluntary opt in and opt out (aka change of mind).
Secondly, I would like to see in the case of any direct marketing/campaigning by electronic means by any political party that a mandatory message be included on the bottom of each email reminding the citizen that s/he may unsubscribe from receiving any further messages by notifying The Chancery and s/he will be removed from the database.
Just 2 quick questions:
Given new citizens may not be aware they have to "opt in" to election communications, will a "opt in" question appear on the Immigration form or will it be entirely up to the citizen to contact The Chancery themselves or having citizens mail them saying "Hey, its a good idea to sign up to this database..."
Secondly, we have seen in the last election that The Chancery has used its mailing account & list to directly mail messages from a political party to all registered voters. Given that opt outees will be on The Chancery's mailing list, but not on the Election Marketing Database, will this amendment be expanded to prevent The Chancery from using its assets to market on behalf of Political Parties?
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 24, 2014 11:31:55 GMT -6
On you first point, I struck the opt out bit because it related to the whole election database. I'm very happy to put it back in with the change so that you can opt out of your email address appearing if you've opted in.
Happy with your second point as well.
On your questions:
1. I would prefer it to be included in the Immigration form personally, but I'm open to other suggestions.
2. I'm keen for us to prevent that from happening again. Open to suggestions on whether we're happy for the Chancery to send emails out on behalf of political parties, though I'm leaning towards a no so long as we have a good opt in and out system.
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Sir C. M. Siervicül
Posts: 9,636
Talossan Since: 8-13-2005
Knight Since: 7-28-2007
Motto: Nonnisi Deo serviendum
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Post by Sir C. M. Siervicül on Nov 25, 2014 4:04:55 GMT -6
I oppose this idea. In my opinion, joining Talossa is informed consent. Part of becoming a member of our community is agreeing to participate in the political process. I can accept the possibility of opting out, but civic participation should be the norm rather than the exception. Changing to an opt-out regime promotes voter ignorance and the atomisation of our society.
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 25, 2014 4:13:04 GMT -6
I oppose this idea. In my opinion, joining Talossa is informed consent. Part of becoming a member of our community is agreeing to participate in the political process. I can accept the possibility of opting out, but civic participation should be the norm rather than the exception. Changing to an opt-out regime promotes voter ignorance and the atomisation of our society. Your logic is such that we should not allow any contestibility given that people consent to joining Talossa as it is. Regardless, as it stands it is TACIT consent, not INFORMED. |
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Post by Ián B. Anglatzarâ on Nov 25, 2014 5:04:21 GMT -6
I oppose this idea. In my opinion, joining Talossa is informed consent. Part of becoming a member of our community is agreeing to participate in the political process. I can accept the possibility of opting out, but civic participation should be the norm rather than the exception. Changing to an opt-out regime promotes voter ignorance and the atomisation of our society. Your logic is such that we should not allow any contestibility given that people consent to joining Talossa as it is. Regardless, as it stands it is TACIT consent, not INFORMED. The current immigration form asks whether citizens are willing to be contacted by other citizens by email. Could the bill reflect that this is in fact informed consent for those who reply in the affirmative? |
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Sir C. M. Siervicül
Posts: 9,636
Talossan Since: 8-13-2005
Knight Since: 7-28-2007
Motto: Nonnisi Deo serviendum
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Post by Sir C. M. Siervicül on Nov 25, 2014 5:10:24 GMT -6
The current immigration form asks whether citizens are willing to be contacted by other citizens by email. Could the bill reflect that this is in fact informed consent for those who reply in the affirmative? Or better, include a separate statement that, unless you opt out, your email will be made available to party leaders for election communications. (Because the current question is broader than that, and seems to cover contact by any citizen.) I grant that consent is not as informed as it could be (though citizens have expected to receive election adverts from parties since the beginning of electoral politics in Talossa). |
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 25, 2014 5:11:55 GMT -6
Your logic is such that we should not allow any contestibility given that people consent to joining Talossa as it is. Regardless, as it stands it is TACIT consent, not INFORMED. The current immigration form asks whether citizens are willing to be contacted by other citizens by email. Could the bill reflect that this is in fact informed consent for those who reply in the affirmative? This actually occurred to me last night - the response that citizens give in that form seems to play a very small part in whether the citizen later receives e-mails from citizens. The Chancery still sends e-mails to these citizens regardless, and the Chancery has never asked to make a note of citizens' responses. It's not presently a legal requirement, however; this bill would make it so. |
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 25, 2014 5:19:16 GMT -6
The current immigration form asks whether citizens are willing to be contacted by other citizens by email. Could the bill reflect that this is in fact informed consent for those who reply in the affirmative? Or better, include a separate statement that, unless you opt out, your email will be made available to party leaders for election communications. (Because the current question is broader than that, and seems to cover contact by any citizen.) I grant that consent is not as informed as it could be (though citizens have expected to receive election adverts from parties since the beginning of electoral politics in Talossa). We'll be missing the point if we take this approach. Individuals should decide whether they're happy or not for their e-mail to be handed out to party leaders, nobody else. I don't know about the US, but if political parties started using my e-mail address without my consent in the UK (or anywhere else) I would be very angry. Sure, they might post leaflets through my letterbox, and I'm okay with that because they're not using a tool for private communication that could be used (and abused) in other ways. In Talossa we don't have letterboxes, but we do at least have inboxes on the forum which could still be used for that purpose. It's not a particularly difficult change that needs to be made, but it's a significant one that ought to be made in order to ensure that people who join Talossa are aware of who will be able to see their e-mail address. |
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Post by C. Carlüs Xheraltescù on Nov 25, 2014 5:31:04 GMT -6
Firstly, I personally would be against removing the "opt out" clause as I would like the peace of mind knowing that if I can voluntarily opt in, I have a statutory right to voluntarily opt out as well. I think the amendment could be better worded to allow voluntary opt in and opt out (aka change of mind). I've changed the bill to reflect this suggestion. Secondly, I would like to see in the case of any direct marketing/campaigning by electronic means by any political party that a mandatory message be included on the bottom of each email reminding the citizen that s/he may unsubscribe from receiving any further messages by notifying The Chancery and s/he will be removed from the database. With the amendment I've made to the bill now, do you think this is still necessary? If so, I would rather submit that change as a separate law but I'm open to having my mind changed on that. |
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