Personal Digital Archiving 2018

In this presentation, we will briefly introduce the Bertillon system of criminal identification as a means of exploring the functions of records created both by and about incarcerated individuals, as well as archival distinctions between institutional and personal records. Although the Bertillon system was implemented for a relatively short period of time (roughly 1890 until the end of World War I), the practice reverberates through contemporary methods of criminal identification and documentation.

These prison records, created for institutional purposes to curb recidivism, are a type of personal record that is not created by the individual but is nonetheless personal. Through our work with Bertillon records over the past three years, we’ve traced the movement of individual identification cards from the moment of creation through to their present-day archival custody.

This work has raised a number of questions and concerns for our research team, which we will explore in our presentation:
- How do our interpretations of privacy change depending on context?
- What is the role of the archive in mediating access to these types of personal records? Are we responsible for controlling access to these materials, especially if our own ethical concerns deviate from the official access policies of the institution where the records actually reside?
- What is the role of recordkeeping in perpetuating the notion of invisible labor?
- How do official recordkeeping practices impact particularly vulnerable populations?