Toast Studio

In several projects, the legal aspect takes a lot of space while in others it is sometimes (wrongfully) ignored. Be it in terms of rights of use, privacy policies or terms of use (to name a few), mentioning them in meetings does not always put a smile on everybody’s face.
Concerning rights of use, I am often surprised at the number of customers who regularly turn to iStockphoto, affordable pictures and videos free of rights, to add to their projects. Digital technology democratised photography (but didn’t make anybody any better), while sites such as iStockphoto has, to an extent, democratised image banks (for better?… not always, but that’s a story for another time).
As for privacy policies, they are documents often believed to be standardised, same for everyone, copied from one place to another. This isn’t really the case. I don’t spend my days in the legal department, but I can tell you that they don’t get drawn up in the blink of an eye. However, Université de Montréal has just launched an online project: the Privacy Policy Generator.
It’s actually a good idea, seeing as in many cases it is possible to rely on a formal template, tweaking certain elements to meet our needs. The questionnaire is a little simple perhaps, but you can easily spot the elements that need more adjusting while having the general template on hand.
The project was accomplished within Cynthia Chassigneux’s post-doctoral project, and executed by Quiboweb. (via OnFaitDuWeb).