This study focuses on the right to privacy in the workplace, specifically employees' expectations of electronic privacy where personal information is processed. The main aim of this dissertation is to establish whether, given advantages in technology, South African laws offers adequate protection for employees when their electronic information is being processed. The study analyses South African law as it relates to the privacy of employees during the processing of their personal information in the workplace.This is examined within the parameters of the constitutional and legislative framework with due regard to the common-law right to privacy. The legal issues are examined from a South African context and is compared with data protection laws and regulations of the United Kingdom. It also offers recommendations based on experience gained in the United Kingdom. / Private Law / LL. M.

This diploma thesis focuses on the topic of posthumous user data management concerning social media platforms. This topic is rarely discussed from the viewpoint of new media studies in academic literature. My thesis endeavours to unveil, contextualize, and critically assess the development of the posthumous data policies in order to uncover the level of control users and survivors have over the deceased users' data. Thus, three case studies of chronological posthumous policy development of major social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) were conducted and results were compared. The analysis has shown that platforms are rather reluctant to change their posthumous policies. One of the primary triggers for change comes from the users' feedback. Across all three cases every platform provided limited or no information about these policies in their terms of use or privacy policies. The case studies demonstrated that users have very limited choices regarding their data after death directly on the examined social media platforms. Individuals who were close to the deceased account users have the ability to request account deletion or have limited access to the account granted by the platform. The level of data preservation demanded by platforms seems dependent on a given social media's communication specificity...

This diploma thesis focuses on the topic of posthumous user data management concerning social media platforms. This topic is rarely discussed from the viewpoint of new media studies in academic literature. My thesis endeavours to unveil, contextualize, and critically assess the development of the posthumous data policies in order to uncover the level of control users and survivors have over the deceased users' data. Thus, three case studies of chronological posthumous policy development of major social media (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) were conducted and results were compared. The analysis has shown that platforms are rather reluctant to change their posthumous policies. One of the primary triggers for change comes from the users' feedback. Across all three cases every platform provided limited or no information about these policies in their terms of use or privacy policies. The case studies demonstrated that users have very limited choices regarding their data after death directly on the examined social media platforms. Individuals who were close to the deceased account users have the ability to request account deletion or have limited access to the account granted by the platform. The level of data preservation demanded by platforms seems dependent on a given social media's communication specificity...

Modeling the "thick description" of photographs began at the intersection of personal and institutional descriptions. Comparing institutional descriptions of particular photos that were also used in personal online conversations was the initial phase. Analyzing conversations that started with a photographic image from the collection of the Library of Congress (LC) or the collection of the Manchester Historic Association (MHA) provided insights into how cultural heritage institutions could enrich the description of photographs by using informal descriptions such as those applied by Facebook users. Taking photos of family members, friends, places, and interesting objects is something people do often in their daily lives. Some photographic images are stored, and some are shared with others in gatherings, occasions, and holidays. Face-to-face conversations about remembering some of the details of photographs and the event they record are themselves rarely recorded. Digital cameras make it easy to share personal photos in Web conversations and to duplicate old photos and share them on the Internet. The World Wide Web even makes it simple to insert images from cultural heritage institutions in order to enhance conversations. Images have been used as tokens within conversations along with the sharing of information and background knowledge about them. The recorded knowledge from conversations using photographic images on Social Media (SM) has resulted in a repository of rich descriptions of photographs that often include information of a type that does not result from standard archival practices. Closed group conversations on Facebook among members of a community of interest/practice often involve the use of photographs to start conversations, convey details, and initiate story-telling about objets, events, and people. Modeling of the conversational use of photographic images on SM developed from the exploratory analyses of the historical photographic images of the Manchester, NH group on Facebook. The model was influenced by the typical model of Representation by Agency from O'Connor in O'Connor, Kearns, and Anderson Doing Things with Information: Beyond Indexing and Abstracting, by considerations of how people make and use photographs, and by the notion of functionality from Patrick Wilson's Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward a Library and Information Policy. The model offers paths for thickening the descriptions of photographs in archives and for enriching the use of photographs on social media.

Der Computer ersetzt in den letzten Jahrzehnten zunehmend analoge Schreibwerkzeuge und Kommunikationsmittel. Das hat auch Auswirkungen auf den Schaffensprozess von Schriftstellern, die ihre Aufzeichnungen immer häufiger als digitale Objekte hinterlassen. Für Literaturarchive stellt sich folglich die Aufgabe, zukünftig auch digitale Schriftstellernachlässe zu übernehmen und zu archivieren und hierfür eine Langzeitzeitarchivierungs-Strategie zu entwickeln. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Zeitraum vor der Übernahme eines Nachlasses durch ein Literaturarchiv und stellt die Frage, welche Maßnahmen Nachlasskuratoren in Zusammenarbeit mit Schriftstellern ergreifen können, um die Langzeitarchivierung zu ermöglichen. Nachlässe sind in diesem Zeitraum noch die persönlichen Archive von Schriftstellern. Der Eingriff von Seiten der Kuratoren in persönliche Archive wird in dieser Arbeit als präkustodiale Intervention bezeichnet. Die Arbeit erörtert zunächst die theoretischen Grundlagen dieser Fragestellung und arbeitet die Notwendigkeit der präkustodialen Intervention in Schriftstellerarchive heraus. Anhand eines Literaturberichtes zeigt sie, dass der Forschungsstand in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz im Vergleich zu den englischsprachigen Ländern defizitär ist und identifiziert Ursachen für diesen Befund. Zudem werden aus der Literatur mögliche Maßnahmen der präkustodialen Intervention entnommen und weiterentwickelt. Daraufhin überprüfen Experteninterviews in ausgewählten Literaturarchiven sowie eine Schriftsteller-Befragung diesen Befund und reichern ihn mit weiteren Daten an. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen der Literaturrecherche und des empirischen Teils wird die Einrichtung einer Cloud-basierten Arbeits- und Archivierungsumgebung für Schriftsteller als Hauptbestandteil einer Interventions-Strategie für Literaturarchive vorgeschlagen. / In recent decades, the computer has been displacing increasingly analogue writing tools and means of communication. This has an impact on the creative process of writers as well who leave their records more and more as digital objects. Therefore, special collections are being confronted with the task to acquire and archive digital papers in the future and to develop a digital preservation strategy for them. The present thesis deals with the period before the acquisition of papers and manuscripts by a special collection and brings up the question what kind of measures curators could take in cooperation with writers in order to make digital preservation possible. During this period, papers are still the personal archives of writers. The intervention in personal archives on the part of the curators is referred to as pre-custodial intervention. The work initially discusses the theoretical foundations of this question and exposes the need of pre-custodial intervention in writers archives. By means of a literature review the thesis shows that the state of research in Germany, Austria and Switzerland compared to English-speaking countries is deficient and identifies reasons for this finding. In addition, possible actions of pre-custodial intervention are taken from the literature and developed further. Thereupon, expert interviews in selected special collections as well as an online survey of writers review this findings and fill them with other data. Based on the results of the literature review and the empirical part, a cloud-based archiving and working environment for writers is proposed as the main component of an intervention strategy for special collections.

Orientation: The safety of any natural being with respect to the processing of their personal information is an essential human right as specified in the Zimbabwe Data Protection Act (ZDPA) bill. Once enacted, the ZDPA bill will affect universities as public entities. It will directly impact how personal information is collected and processed. The bill will be fundamental in understanding the privacy perceptions of students in relation to privacy awareness, privacy expectations and confidence within university. These need to be understood to give guidelines to universities on the implementation of the ZPDA. Problem Statement: The current constitution and the ZDPA are not sufficient to give organisations guidelines on ensuring personal information privacy. There is need for guidelines to help organisations and institutions to implement and comply with the provisions of the ZDPA in the context of Zimbabwe. The privacy regulations, regarded as the three concepts (awareness, expectations and confidence), were used to determine the student perceptions. These three concepts have not been researched before in the privacy context and the relationship between the three concepts has not as yet been established. Research purpose: The main aim of the study was to develop and validate an Information Privacy Perception Survey (IPPS) diagnostic tool and a Student Personal Information Privacy Perception (SPIPP) model to give guidelines to universities on how they can implement the ZDPA and aid universities in comprehending student privacy perceptions to safeguard personal information and assist in giving effect to their privacy constitutional right. Research Methodology: A quantitative research method was used in a deductive research approach where a survey research strategy was applied using the IPPS instrument for data collection. The IPPS instrument was designed with 54 items that were developed from the literature. The preliminary instrument was taken through both the expert review and pilot study. Using the non-probability convenience sampling method, 287 students participated in the final survey. SPSS version 25 was used for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were done. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to validate the instrument while confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to validate the model. Main findings: diagnostic instrument was validated and resulted in seven new factors, namely university confidence (UC), privacy expectations (PE), individual awareness (IA), external awareness (EA), privacy awareness (PA), practice confidence (PC) and correctness expectations (CE). Students indicated that they had high expectations of the university on privacy. The new factors showed a high level of awareness of privacy and had low confidence in the university safeguarding their personal information privacy. A SPIPP empirical model was also validated using structural equation modelling (SEM) and it indicated an average overall good fit between the proposed SPIPP conceptual model and the empirically derived SPIPP model Contribution: A diagnostic instrument that measures the perceptions (privacy awareness, expectations and confidence of students) was developed and validated. This study further contributed a model for information privacy perceptions that illustrates the relationship between the three concepts (awareness, expectations and confidence). Other universities can use the model to ascertain the perceptions of students on privacy. This research also contributes to improvement in the personal information protection of students processed by universities. The results will aid university management and information regulators to implement measures to create a culture of privacy and to protect student data in line with regulatory requirements and best practice. / School of Computing / Ph. D. (Information Systems)