[Corpora-List] Spoken corpora - permission issues

From: Cameron Smart (cjsmart@hkeaa.edu.hk)
Date: Thu May 12 2005 - 07:40:13 MET DST

  • Next message: Jean Veronis: "Re: [Corpora-List] Spoken corpora - permission issues"

    Dear All

    I have recently been in touch with several people in charge of spoken
    corpora to ask about the issue of participants' permission. I am thinking
    here of those corpora based on recorded conversations where the other
    participants aren't necessarily aware of the recording taking place. Several
    people struck a very cautionary note, one even saying that, in the UK at
    least, these types of corpora might be a thing of the past unless I went and
    got explicit permission not only from the volunteer but every other person
    who was recorded as well.

    The standard BNC request at
    http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/what/permletters.html#spoken1 , however, does
    not seem to cover the other participants. The same seems to be true from the
    example of the permission form used in the COLT corpus, on p222 of 'Trends
    in Teenage Talk' by Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund, where they simply
    guarantee anonymity for all participants.

    Can anybody shed some light on this issue? For my own practical reasons, my
    focus is on the UK, but of course would be very interested in what the
    situation is in other parts of the world.

    Sorry if this has been covered before. I found threads in the archives on
    issues of permission related to copyright and written texts as well as
    permission and websites but nothing specifically related to this issue.

    I will post a summary in due course

    Thanks

    Cameron Smart
    Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority
    Hong Kong



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 12 2005 - 08:38:52 MET DST