Ruth Maguire, interviewed by Yixin Wei (2)

Ruth Maguire, interviewed by Yixin Wei (2)

The Life of a Sound Archive

A sound clip of Ruth Maguire talking about the right clearance and sensitivity checks

Interview with Ruth Maguire in 2023

16/08/23

You may use this item in accordance with the licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

.mp3

English

Oral History

3:33

And then, after that would be the right clearance process of, if there are any recordings that we select that we would like to put the full recording online, we need to make sure that the person has consented to it, and they know that it's going online. We'll need to know that there's no data sensitivities in it that would need to be redacted. And, or, if there's anything that we need to put a warning on for, you know, offensive language and things like that. So, yeah, that's the the full process. Do you want to know about the way we handle sensitive data like data sensitivities? So, as I say, we, when we're listening to the recording, we will flag any sensitivities that we find. We're mainly looking out for sensitivities where it's about a named, living individual, so somebody who could be identified and are still living, so they could cause them distress in some way if something was broadcast like that. Generally, it's not the interviewee, because they've consented to the interview, they're talking themselves, so that - there may be sensitivities with that, but it's less, it's less likely. We look out for specific categories. So, if they talk about religious or philosophical beliefs, political beliefs, something to do with sexual or sexuality, trade union activities, corporate or industry, illegal, criminal, bad behaviour, bullying, malpractice. If it's race or ethnicity related, to do with war or violence, if it's to do with medical or health, or if it's just scurrilous gossip. So, if they just, you know, say something that may not be true, that might distress the individual they talk about. So, they’re the things we look at when we're actually cataloguing, when we're listening to the recording, looking at the summaries, those things will be flagged up. We'll then go back to it at a later date and review and see whether those bits need to be redacted, if they need to be, the recording needs to not be accessed by the public. Then, we also do different checks for, if the recording’s to go online, as well as the sensitivity check we did when cataloguing. You also do, we have like a lexicon of words that we search for in summaries and transcripts to see if they're, they may have not been picked up in the cataloguing, so we have specific terms like war, and violence, those-sort of things to try and flag up to see if there's anything else. We also listen to, like, samples throughout the recording just to try and listen and see if there are any sensitivities that might have been missed. So, we just, it's a risk-based thing, so, if there are sensitivities in it we have to check whether they're OK to go online still, or it needs to, it needs to be not accessed by the public. Or, if we need to redact it just a small section, for example, anonymize the interview, or take out a name, take out a date of birth, things like that. So, yeah, that's the sensitivity process.

Yixin Wei

Ruth Maguire

EMOHA