Digital documentation

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Digital documentation is the paperless, electronic compilation of documents. Electronic storage media are used for this. The stored documents ( files such as texts, images or videos) can be made accessible online internally in networks or publicly on Internet platforms. Digital documentation is used nowadays in all areas, be it in business, in scientific or official institutions or in the private sector.

Social impact

The internet is also considered a digital memory, as information that has been saved can be accessed indefinitely. Due to the rapid technical development, this phenomenon is subject to permanent change, makes it difficult to adapt legal regulations and has an impact on society and the lives of individual people.

Everyone who browses the Internet leaves so-called digital traces, there is hardly an activity that is not documented. When Google or Facebook are regularly stored for up to 60 features. This includes location determinations, search queries, activities on social platforms, page views in general, communication partners and friend lists, typing speed on the keyboard or downloads and devices used. These processes create a so-called digital identity of a person, formed from the stored network activities. This is used by companies, for example for targeted advertising.

Information about private individuals can also enter the network involuntarily. If someone unknowingly films or photographs you, the images can be circulating on the internet minutes later, often edited and taken out of context. As a result, published data often develop an uncontrollable life of their own. Due to the temporal and spatial independence of the users, the digital memory is growing steadily.

Unauthorized photography and publication represent a violation of personal rights and copyrights. This can have significant consequences, especially for children. Unlike previous generations, parents today can post videos and photos of their children on the Internet. Today's childhood is therefore also referred to as digital childhood. Ultrasound images of unborn babies are even published in blogs or specially created profiles on social networks. Later it will hardly be possible for the affected child to revoke or delete such information.

Phenomena

With digital documentation, unprecedented accompanying phenomena arise. Stored data available online usually only show a small section of reality or distort reality. If you google a person, you get a certain picture of them based on the search results. This digitally created reputation is called "Googlability". The Wirtschaftswoche experiment offers a vivid example . Here the fictional person Reiner Fakeman was constructed. Profiles on social networks and blogs were created in his name and provided with alleged information about himself. If you now enter the name Reiner Fakeman in the Google search, you get the digital identity of the fictional character based on the Google hits, who appears to the searcher like a real person.

Information units of this type can be disseminated, for example, in the form of memes . A meme is a sequence of information that is made available online and publicly in different versions. The meme can be copied, edited or placed in other contexts. Examples that occur frequently in the field of digital documentation are cell phone films that are uploaded to platforms or pictures of people who are mostly known and in public. Due to the rapid spread and change in context, the memes can hardly be controlled by those affected. If this is followed by a control or extinguishing attempt, this can have consequences that usually outweigh the original effects. The Streisand effect describes this chain of effects. Trying to gain control creates an even greater loss of control. For example, trying to get circulating data deleted can attract more attention than the original publication itself. The name of this paradox goes back to the singer and actress Barbra Streisand , who sued a photographer who found an aerial photograph of her house among numerous other recordings of him could be found on a website. It was only then that it became known that the photo was of her house, and the news spread rapidly across the Internet.

Often people or companies are overwhelmed with the management of their digital reputation. There is a need for experts who can foresee and avoid chains of effects such as the Streisand effect. A business area of ​​its own is establishing itself in this niche. In scandal and reputation management , consultants are employed to deal with negative content and to build up the best possible image of their customers online.

Sample cases

The case of the Bus Uncle is a mobile phone film from Hong Kong from 2006. An elderly man was talking on the bus when a younger passenger tapped him on the shoulder in the seat behind him and warned him to calm down. The older man burst into anger and gestured loudly on the bus. The scene was filmed by a student. He published the video, which then became a YouTube hit. The meme was copied, edited, constantly changed and placed in different contexts and remains up-to-date thanks to the new incentives. The two people in the film have no way of gaining control over the circulating versions. The line between private events and the public is becoming blurred. Anyone can be filmed in uncomfortable situations, and it doesn't take any skills to become an internet celebrity. A new power emanates from technology and everyone can publish like a journalist, the classic gatekeeper. In this example, the filming student acts as a silent ruler who decides whether the video and thus the actors are presented to the public.

Communication via SMS, chat programs and e-mails is also digitally documented. This was fatal for two employees of a German company. During an exchange via email, the two colleagues shared intimate details from their private lives. The situational conversation, which was originally intended for two familiar people, was, however, torn out of its context. One of the two women made a typo in the address bar and sent the entire email history with stories from her love life to her department's mailing list. From here the distribution radius expanded. It was probably an employee who forwarded the email to friends and acquaintances. The content was copied, edited and commented on and found its way onto the World Wide Web and even into the print media.

An analysis of the situation shows a development similar to the snowball principle. A "one-to-one" communication, i.e. a conversation intended for only two specific participants, becomes a "many-to-many" communication through further dissemination and a "one-to-many" through forms such as print media -Communication.

The women affected fell victim to the illusion of privacy. At the moment of the situation, one is often not aware that e-mails, once sent, are irrevocable and permanently documented. Since this is a private conversation between friends, you proceed carelessly and, like in a personal conversation, you feel safe. The difference, however, lies in the communication mode: While there are hardly any possibilities for documentation in oral communication among friends, it is much easier with electronic communication. In the case of the two colleagues, a simple mistake in mindfulness leads to the spread and thus involuntary awareness on the Internet. In addition, the anonymization carried out by print and online media is usually only superficial. With a little research, the identities of those affected can definitely be found out.

Ethical issues

What is striking about the example cases presented is the rapid rate of spread. Numerous people are involved in this. There is always one or more people in charge through whom information reaches the public from a closed area. In the case of the “Bus Uncle” video in particular, the author, i.e. the end of the film, is in a “blind spot”. The video is only accepted as the end product, but the ethical correctness of the filming and distribution is not questioned. Even with the often shared and forwarded emails, nobody pays attention to the silent actors. You play the role of the innocent messenger in the scenario. In this way, it is basically possible for anyone to take on the role of the classic gatekeeper and decide what is made public and what is not. 

Your own intervention in the disseminated information must also be viewed critically. You tear the information, the video or the conversation out of its actual context of meaning and insert it, often even edited and not in the original, into other contexts. There they can have different and possibly much more negative effects. The reactions of numerous users also show that anonymity is disinhibited. These can heat up so much that a real internet pillory arises. This is how digital documentation influences the “scandal culture” of a society. 

Forgiving and forgetting are part of human coexistence. Digital documentation creates new starting situations. "Forgetting" takes on a different meaning due to permanent data storage, because what is forgotten can always be retrieved from digital memory without great effort. A person's past is archived. For example, if a person was a member of an organization or political party with which they no longer identify because their values ​​and views have changed, this information will still exist. If they are now called up by other users, hardly anyone will pay attention to whether they are in the past, if this is even apparent from the data. 

With digital documents, it is often not immediately apparent how long something is in the past. The impression of a permanent present is created. In this way, those affected can be reduced to the past with which they have long since finished. A person's past is kept static and it becomes difficult to distance oneself from it online. “The Internet denies us humans the opportunity to develop, grow and learn,” legal scholar Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is quoted in an article from Die Zeit . Forgetting and forgiving are therefore constitutive features of human coexistence. They enable reorientation and further development. With the digital age, however, the culture of remembrance has changed in society.

Clear

If data such as memes reach social networks, you can try to have them deleted. Taking the social platform Facebook as an example , it is apparently possible to delete content. However, if you look behind the scenes, it quickly becomes clear that the deletion is much more of a concealment. The content is no longer visible on the surface, but it still exists in the internal data storage. This is due to the fact that a chain of other content is linked to the respective content. For example, if a picture is commented on or linked, a complex context arises in which the content is integrated. If one now had to resolve all relationships, the systems would become overloaded and the content of other users would be influenced. Therefore, for most companies, it is easier to hide the unwanted data than to delete it. And even if it were possible to delete everything on one platform, there is no guarantee that, for example, the picture has not already been copied, saved on private computers or published on other platforms.

However, there are already methods that are used to delete data from the network. Particularly in the case of government files, certain regulations and data protection provisions apply. One implementation idea is, for example, a so-called “digital eraser”. It is about an electronic expiry date that is created by encrypting data. To this end, projects are brought into being again and again with the aim of making such an expiration date possible. Michael Backes also developed the controversial X-Pire program for this purpose . Unfortunately, the software is not a real alternative. It is cumbersome to use, costs money and is criticized for saving the data of its users.

Despite these attempts, forgetting in the network has not yet been implemented on a general level. In reality there are too many uncontrollable influencing factors. Because even if a person stays completely away from the Internet, he cannot influence his environment. If a family member uploads pictures to a platform, you will be filmed unknowingly, be it directly or because you can be seen indirectly in a visitor's mobile phone film at events, or if your own name appears online during school activities or club tournaments, no previous law applies or Program to protect the rights of the data subject.

In a different way, the digital charter initiative tries to protect people's personal rights online. Scientists, politicians, network activists and numerous other participants wrote a document with the fundamental digital rights desired in the European Union, the document was published in December 2016. The aim is to present the demands to the European Parliament in Brussels and to the public for further discussion. Article 18 is particularly interesting for digital documentation: “ Right to be forgotten . Everyone has the right to a digital new beginning. This right finds its limits in the legitimate information interests of the public. ”The EU General Data Protection Regulation  comes into force in 2018. The subject of forgetting can be found in Article 17: “Right to erasure” (right to be forgotten), where the controller, with the exception of a few restrictions, must arrange for personal data to be deleted if data subjects so request.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Documentation. Duden - Bibliographisches Institut GmbH, accessed on October 21, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Storage media. Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media (IWM) in Tübingen, accessed on October 31, 2017 .
  3. ↑ Digital recording and documentation of network and operating resources. imp GmbH, accessed on October 31, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Principles for the proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form as well as for data access (GoBD). Federal Ministry of Finance, accessed on October 31, 2017 .
  5. ^ Steffen Rupp: Electronic medical documentation. Technical University of Hesse, accessed on October 31, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Inge Kutter: The network forgets. In: Zeit Online. September 27, 2012, accessed October 2, 2017 .
  7. ^ Stefan Aust, Thomas Ammann: Digital dictatorship: total surveillance, data abuse, cyber war . Ullstein Taschenbuch, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-548-37627-1 , pp. 9 .
  8. ↑ Constanze Kurz, Frank Rieger: Die Datenfresser: How internet companies and the state incorporate our personal data and how we regain control over it . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19033-1 , pp. 85 .
  9. ↑ Constanze Kurz, Frank Rieger: Die Datenfresser: How internet companies and the state incorporate our personal data and how we regain control over it . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19033-1 , pp. 68-71 .
  10. ↑ Christian Schebitz: Unauthorized photography represents a violation of personality. In: rechtsanwalt.com. ArenoNet GmbH, May 23, 2014, accessed on October 21, 2017 .
  11. ↑ What is copyright infringement? Professional Association of Legal Journalists, accessed on October 21, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Constanze Kurz, Frank Rieger: Die Datenfresser: How internet companies and the state incorporate our personal data and how we regain control over it . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19033-1 , pp. 68-69 .
  13. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal. The end of control in the digital age . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 215-217 .
  14. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal. The end of control in the digital age . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 217 .
  15. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal. The end of control in the digital age . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 169-171 .
  16. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 206-207 .
  17. ↑ scene on youtube
  18. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 166-178 .
  19. ↑ Bernhard Pörksen, Hanne Detel: The unleashed scandal . Herbert von Halem, Cologne 2012, ISBN 978-3-86962-058-9 , p. 179-184 .
  20. ↑ a b c Karsten Polke-Majewski: No forgiveness, no forgetting. April 7, 2011, accessed October 2, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Constanze Kurz, Frank Rieger: Die Datenfresser: How internet companies and the state incorporate our personal data and how we regain control over it . S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-596-19033-1 , pp. 79-80 .
  22. ↑ Aigner presents expiry date for photos. In: Zeit Online. Retrieved October 2, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Ekkehard Kern: "Digital Eraser" gets bad report. In: The world. April 21, 2011, accessed October 2, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Digital Charter. Retrieved September 28, 2017 .
  25. ↑ General Data Protection Regulation. daschug GmbH, April 27, 2016, accessed on September 28, 2017 .