3 results found

1. Take a good, hard look at patrons' data privacy in LX Starter

   LX Starter seems to be bringing over and storing most of the personal data from a patron's record whenever it sends them an email. (See screenshot attached.) Even though much of it is hashed, it raises 2 major concerns:

   1. why is LX Starter NOT treating all of this information, such as patron barcode and last 4 of phone number, as PII, since in many libraries this combo can be used to access patron records through the online catalog?

   2. why is it bringing over this additional information at all (address, phone, birthdate, etc.) when the only PII LX Starter should need is the patron's name and email address (plus titles and fines and library data to populate individual notices)?

   Many libraries use the last 4 digits of the patron phone number or even their zip code as the default account PIN, and many patrons never change from the default. When combined with the complete barcode, library users can log into their library account online to access all their account information-- including full access to view and change the PII LX Starter is showing as hashed-- plus current checkouts, fines, and potentially reading history.

   That means if a staff member with a weak password had even read-only access to LX starter, all of the PII for every patron who has ever received an LX Starter notification can potentially be accessed by using unhashed data to log into that library's online catalog. It would be a convoluted way to get personal data, but a vulnerability, regardless.

   I'm not a data security expert but I'm guessing any of these steps would resolve the problem or at least reduce risk:

   1. Modify LX Starter so it does not fetch or store any patron PII-- hashed or not-- from the ILS besides patron name, email address, maybe barcode, and the checkout/fine information needed for the notice OR if that's not possible, at least fully hash the entire address, phone number, and birthdate shown in the notice activity logs.

   2. Do not show the full library barcode. Ideally, let libraries set how many digits to display. In our library, for example, the last 6 are unique, so we might choose to only show the last 3 or 4.

   3. Offer 2 factor LX Starter login for any libraries who share concern about the security of patron information stored in LX Starter

   Just one of these steps would be an improvement, though all 3 of them would be even better. Perhaps there are other solutions I'm unaware of that would be more effective.

   LX Starter seems to be bringing over and storing most of the personal data from a patron's record whenever it sends them an email. (See screenshot attached.) Even though much of it is hashed, it raises 2 major concerns:

   1. why is LX Starter NOT treating all of this information, such as patron barcode and last 4 of phone number, as PII, since in many libraries this combo can be used to access patron records through the online catalog?

   2. why is it bringing over this additional information at all (address, phone, birthdate, etc.) when the only PII LX Starter should need… more

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   CLOSED  ·  7 comments  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →

2. Develop Capacity to Notify Patrons Re: High Number of Items

   We just had a situation where a patron had 357 items that were all set to receive a level 3 overdue notice on the same day. The customer had been receiving their library notices, sent via LX Starter, steadily before & after the point where they would have received notification re: these items, but the overdue notification for these 357 items were essentially Thanos snapped.

   Delivered as they had been prior to LX Starter, if a patron had a lot of items for one notice job, Sierra would divide the items among multiple notices. We learned from Support that 357 items is too much data for Sierra to pass to LX Starter in one notice & there's nothing currently in place to split them up to a manageable volume.

   We don't know what LX Starter's current capacity is, but at the moment we have nearly 120 patrons with 200+ checkouts, so it's very possible that this could happen again &/or may have already happened without our having heard about it.

   We'd like LX Starter to be able to handle any volume of notification necessary to meet the expectations of our patrons, whether by sending all items as one notice or by mirroring the legacy functionality & splitting them up over several notices.

   We just had a situation where a patron had 357 items that were all set to receive a level 3 overdue notice on the same day. The customer had been receiving their library notices, sent via LX Starter, steadily before & after the point where they would have received notification re: these items, but the overdue notification for these 357 items were essentially Thanos snapped.

   Delivered as they had been prior to LX Starter, if a patron had a lot of items for one notice job, Sierra would divide the items among multiple notices. We learned from Support that 357… more

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   CLOSED  ·  AdminTaylor Fisher (Admin, Innovative) responded

   Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback with us. We understand the importance of being able to send comprehensive emails.

    

   Currently, our email server has a limit of sending emails that are 256KB in size. When emails contain a large number of items the size can quickly exceed this limit. For example, a message with upwards of 350 items can be close to 464KB (depending on other factors like images or videos).

    

   Additionally, many email clients start to clip messages that exceed 102KB. Heavier emails can also take longer to render fully and are at a higher risk of being identified as spam by email clients.

    

   For these reasons we won't be increasing the email size at this time. We appreciate your understanding and thank you for looking for ways to help improve our service

3. Add Sierra Hold Request Date into Hold cancellation notices

   Support team told us Sierra isn't designed to supply hold request date for cancellation notices. Please consider add it. thanks

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   CLOSED  ·  AdminTaylor Fisher (Admin, Innovative) responded

   Thank you for reaching out and sharing your feedback with us.

   
   

   Currently, LX Starter displays notice data that the ILS passes to it. If Sierra doesn't provide the hold request date then LX Starter can't display it in the notice.

   
   

   This idea has been transfered to Sierra for them to assess adding to their roadmap.

   
   

   Thank you for understanding and thank you for looking for ways to help improve our service.