Proposal: Citizen Information Act

[Claude Desmoulins]

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The names of CDS citizens and the identities of the CDS parcels they own shall be considered public information. The Treasurer shall make this information available both in world and via the world wide web.

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Explanation:

This already exists (DeedKeys in the Rathaus and pages on neufreistadt.info) if it's updated. While citizens have some expectation of privacy, the fact that you are a citizen and what land you hold seems like "directory information" (Think RL real estate and voter registration records). This bill makes it a formal requirement that this be public.

[Beathan]

I see one issue here. In RL, land can be held through proxies and the identity of the true owner can be kept private. This might be something we want to reject, but it also might be something we want to allow. The problem is that we link land ownership to enfranchisement, so we either run into proxy voting, which has its own problems, or disenfranchisement of people with a high personal standard for privacy.

Beathan

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Hm. In the interest of fairness, I would like to repeat a point that was brought up to me. The person asked to be anonymous, for reasons below.

Essentially, it was concern that having this information available on the web could be a breach of privacy for those who try to keep SL and real life seperate. Having one's avatar name show up in a Google search was a specific concern.

While I personally disagree with this - SL and the rest of the internet are slated to become more integrated, and even if the CDS does not post such information it is only slightly more than trivial for anyone who wishes to gather and post it - every viewpoint deserves to be aired. Therefore, I'm relaying it.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Aliasi Stonebender":2wmh9sri]Essentially, it was concern that having this information available on the web could be a breach of privacy for those who try to keep SL and real life seperate. Having one's avatar name show up in a Google search was a specific concern.[/quote:2wmh9sri]

Did the person concerned state [i:2wmh9sri]why[/i:2wmh9sri] he or she thought that having an avatar name appear on a Google search would be capable of having any impact on a separation between SecondLife and the first life, especially when one can search for avatar names [i:2wmh9sri]in[/i:2wmh9sri] SecondLife?

[Claude Desmoulins]

I don't want to sound as if I am not concerned about privacy, but I am concerned about the notion that one can be a citizen in total anonymity. I believe that entering a community such as ours, where decision making is not vested in a single person and community members have voting rights, entails at least some slight loss of privacy. There are CDS citizens very concerned about their RL privacy. In most cases this does not seem to require that they keep their avatar anonymous.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":352ghoql]
Did the person concerned state [i:352ghoql]why[/i:352ghoql] he or she thought that having an avatar name appear on a Google search would be capable of having any impact on a separation between SecondLife and the first life, especially when one can search for avatar names [i:352ghoql]in[/i:352ghoql] SecondLife?[/quote:352ghoql]

Yes. However, it is not my place to share their personal concerns beyond the scope of what I said before. I did point out the above, but they believe the two differ in some respect.

[Claude Desmoulins]

Let me be clear that I'm not calling for the release/publication of presently secret information. My intent with this bill is to codify and legally mandate the current practice of publishing citizen and parcel lists. If the person to whom Aliasi refers is a current citizen, the cat is out of the proverbial bag, as it were.