Digital archiving has brought about a world of convenience in terms of preserving and accessing information. However, it also introduces new ethical concerns related to digital reproduction.
Digital reproduction poses challenges to the original owner’s rights and interests. Essentially, when we create a digital copy of a work, we create a new work based on the original. This raises several questions and concerns about the nature of the new work and how it relates to the original, as well as the rights of the original owner in a digital, AI-filled world.
For instance, who owns the copyright of the digital copy? Who has the authority to modify, edit, or delete the digital copy? How can the original owner protect their work from unauthorized use or misuse? What about use by AI and generative technology? All of this must be taken into consideration when creating a digital reproduction.
Digital Ownership
One of the main ethical concerns surrounding digital archiving is the question of ownership. When we digitize a document, we create a digital copy that can be endlessly reproduced and distributed. This has many benefits, such as making information more accessible to a wider audience and making it easier to locate and retrieve information.
However, in many cases, a document or image’s original creator or owner holds the copyright or other intellectual property rights. The copyright grants exclusive rights to the creator of an original work to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work and typically lasts for the rest of the creator’s life plus 70 years after death.
Libraries and archives have certain exceptions to the copyright law, which often allow them to reproduce copyrighted materials for preservation and research purposes. The fair use rule also allows copyrighted material to be used without the owner’s permission, typically in cases of educational or personal use. However, fair use is determined on a case-by-case basis, considering factors such as the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality of the portion used, or the value of the copyrighted work.
Therefore, when digitizing and publishing materials online, it is essential to respect the rights and wishes of the original creators and owners. This may involve seeking their permission, acknowledging their authorship, or limiting the access to certain materials. It also means being aware of the potential uses and misuses of digital content by third parties, such as large language models (LLMs) or image generators, which may appropriate, alter, or distort the original work without notifying the original owner. Digitization can be a powerful tool for preserving and disseminating cultural heritage, but it also requires ethical awareness and responsibility.
Digital Privacy
Privacy is another ethical consideration around digital reproduction. When a physical object is digitized, personal information may be captured, such as the names of individuals in a photograph or the content of a personal letter.
The question becomes, is it ethical to publish a document when the author never intended it to be publicly available?
People often assume that their personal conversations are safe when they share them with others in a private setting. However, this information can become vulnerable to exploitation and misuse when digitized. The onus is on the archivist to be responsible and cautious with the information that is captured and to ensure that the person’s privacy and dignity are respected.
There is also the legality of making private information publicly available, as they must comply with privacy laws and regulations. Some laws protect against disclosing personally identifiable information; this includes any information maintained by an organization, such as financial transactions or employment history. Laws like the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) specifically protect personal educational records and health information. Failure to comply with these regulations may result in legal action, which could damage the reputation of the institution responsible for the digital collection.
It is generally assumed that privacy laws and regulations do not apply to digital collections intended for internal or personal use, but it is still important to remember that personal information should be kept confidential and only accessed by authorized personnel. This is important to prevent any inadvertent release of personal information that could cause harm or damage to individuals or institutions.
Bound inexplicably with privacy is the security of digital collections. With the increasing use of cloud computing and other online platforms, digital collections are exposed to various threats, such as hacking, malware, data breaches, or unauthorized access. These threats can compromise the privacy, integrity, and availability of the digital collections and cause irreparable damage to the individuals or institutions involved. Therefore, it is vital to implement proper measures to protect digital collections from cyberattacks and ensure their safety and reliability.
One of the measures that digital archivists can take is to encrypt their digital collections and store them in secure servers or devices. Encryption is a process of transforming data into an unreadable form that can only be accessed by authorized parties who have the decryption key. This way, even if the data is stolen or intercepted, it cannot be read or used by unauthorized parties. Encryption can also prevent unauthorized modifications or alterations to the data, which can affect its authenticity and accuracy.
Another measure that digital archivists can take is to monitor and audit their digital collections regularly and keep track of any changes or activities that occur. This can help detect and prevent any potential threats or incidents that may compromise the security of the digital collections. Routine monitoring and auditing can also help identify and fix any errors or vulnerabilities that may exist in digital collections, as well as provide evidence and accountability for your actions and decisions concerning your digital collections.
How AI Connects to Ethics and Digital Archives
AI and Cybersecurity
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought new opportunities and challenges for digital archivists. AI can help automate and improve various aspects of digital archiving, such as metadata generation, data analysis, quality control, or preservation. It can also help enhance the accessibility and usability of digital collections by providing natural language processing search queries, image recognition, speech recognition, or machine translation. However, AI also poses new risks and ethical issues for digital archivists, such as bias, manipulation, or misuse of the digital collections.
One of the risks that AI poses for digital archivists is that companies can, and have been known to, exploit digital collections for training, testing, or improving AI models and algorithms without the owner’s knowledge. This raises concerns about the privacy and consent of the individuals or groups whose data is used by AI. It can also raise questions about the ownership and intellectual property rights of the digital collections being used and the AI products that learn from them. Digital archivists need to be aware of the potential uses and impacts of AI on their digital collections and ensure that they comply with the relevant laws and regulations that govern the use of personal data and AI.
Most of the time, the safest way to protect your collection is not to allow them to be used for LLMs in the first place but depending on the terms and conditions of your selected cloud storage or DAMS, even a private collection could be mined for LLMs. Anytime AI is attached to a product, verify that your collection is protected from access by the AI and that your data will not be used to train a LLM. If a company cannot provide this guarantee, then they may not be the right vendor for your collection. Even if your collection isn’t considered private, copyright law may mean that the owners of the copyright are the only ones who can consent to allowing LLMs to use their works, as can be seen in the various lawsuits happening now against AI companies, so it’s always best to err on the side of privacy.
AI and Generative Technology
With the dangers of AI and generative technology to create new works based on existing ones, how can we ensure that the original creator’s wishes and intentions are respected? For example, since AI can generate realistic images, videos, or texts that mimic the style or content of a source material how do we think about issues of authenticity, consent, and accountability? It is often difficult to tell if a digital work is original or generated by AI. How can we prevent the misuse of AI-generated works for malicious purposes? These are some of the questions that need to be addressed as we enter the era of digital archiving.
Some digital asset management systems (DAMS) are beginning to utilize tools that identify when a file has been created or modified using AI. This is a great start; but it’s not always accurate and the benefits are limited to the organization itself.
When an AI modified or generated file is let loose on the web, the opportunity for widespread damage is high. To control this, you must pay attention to the ethical safeguards surrounding digital materials, know the original of any digital media in your collection, and be prepared to defend legitimate digital copies against AI-generated material.
Ethical Issues in Digital Archiving
In an increasingly fast-paced and technology-driven world, convenience has become a top priority. It is important not to side-step ethical issues in the pursuit of convenience. Digital archivists must carefully consider these questions and develop policies and practices that are transparent, fair, and respectful of the rights of original creators and cultural communities.
None of these concerns should stop a family or organization from digitizing their collections! Despite the potential risk, digital archives should be transparent about their policies and practices. This includes clearly communicating who owns the rights to the original works, as well as whether any compensation is required for their use. The digital archive should provide clear guidance on how these reproductions can be used in a way that respects the original creator’s rights. Organizations that wish to share their collections with the world via the web should carefully consider security measures built in to prevent downloading or sharing images that are under copyright or other legal protections.
If you’re looking to create a digital archive or digitize your documents, we’re here to help guide you through the process. Contact Anderson Archival today to learn more about our services and how we can help you preserve your important records for future generations.
