In this special episode of This Week in Digital Trust, we explore familiar themes, but with a twist. 

On the podcast we often discuss concepts of agency and a sense of identity in the context of privacy, and how our grip on these concepts can be undermined when we lose control over our information. 

For Australians who have experienced disadvantage, especially children that have grown up in out-of-home care, these challenges are even more pronounced. Many typically don't have any access to their own records or sufficient visibility about how they are used and for what ends.

We speak with experts Frank Golding and Barbara Reed (bios below) to explore this experience and how recordkeeping is now being re-imagined, in a way that might have lessons for how personal data is managed by organisations more broadly.

Bios:

Dr Frank Golding OAM

Frank Golding has a PhD from Federation University Australia and is a Life Member of CLAN, the national care leaver advocacy body. A social historian, Frank has contributed to formal inquiries dealing with the institutionalisation of children and to projects with the National Museum, the National Library of Australia, and the National Summit on Rights in Records. He has presented papers on child welfare in a number of countries. He has written more than a dozen books, as well as book chapters and refereed journal articles.

Barbara Reed

Barbara Reed is currently working as a part time Research Fellow on the Rights in Records projects of Monash University. As an independent archives and records consultant and Director of Recordkeeping Innovation,  she has worked with a range of government, non-government, private and non-profit organisations, in Australia and internationally. She has previously worked on issues empowering access to records for the Care Leaver Community and the Stolen Generation. Much of her consulting work has been focused on developing recordkeeping practices and competencies, transforming recordkeeping into digital practice, and working with a range of stakeholders to create strategic interventions through standards and best practice guidelines.

Links:

Dr Frank Golding OAM https://frankgolding.com/

Charter of Lifelong Rights in Childhood Recordkeeping in Out of Home Care https://www.monash.edu/it/clrc

Bodies of Light (book) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58420822-bodies-of-light

Credits:

Music by Bensound.com