New Catalogue and Privacy

Q. I like the new catalogue interface but I noticed it is hosted on server located outside of Canada. What personal information as defined in Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is being stored, is there an option to opt out of the new catalogue and have users been properly informed that library services may not be fulfilled with Canadian servers?

Specifically when I try to see what I have checked out, it takes me too sfu-primo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com which has an IP in Illinois, USA. Is my record being stored there?

A. Thank you for taking the time to check-out the new catalogue interface.  I'm pleased to hear that you like it. 

As part of our negotiations with the vendor (Ex Libris) for our new system we insisted that all of our SFU data had to reside on a Canadian server in order to comply with BC's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.  They agreed and established a new data centre in Toronto, Ontario, and we are the first Canadian customer to use that new facility. 

We suspect Ex Libris may have re-allocated some of their IP ranges to the new Canadian data centre and that some of the geolocation look-up services are not as current as they could be. Library systems also had a closer look at traceroute data and it indicates the connection goes to a Canadian destination.  However, we will also follow-up with Ex Libris to confirm this is the case. 

Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Best regards,

Brian Owen

ADL, Library Technology & Special Collections