Enabling stronger anonimity protections in Columinity - theliberators/columinity.docs GitHub Wiki

Columinity goes to great lengths to protect participants' anonymity and privacy. To learn more about our default strategies, consult this page. Sometimes, the degree to which teams trust how the data will be used or Columinity itself is so low that additional measures may be necessary. This step-by-step guide explains how to do this.

Who is this guide for?

  • Teams and organizations where trust in how data is collected and used is very low and impedes the use of Columinity (and other data-collection)

How to enable low-trust mode

Columinity features a 'low-trust mode'. Teams can enable it when they have concerns about how the data might be used within the organization. It can be turned on and off by a team in their Team Report ("Settings" > "Team Privacy Settings"). When enabled:

  • The Teams Dashboard no longer shows the differences in scores with previous snapshots for this team.
  • The team's name is replaced with 'Anonymized' in score breakdowns.
  • The list of invitees for a snapshot is completely anonymized.
  • Access to the Team Report for this team requires a PIN code (set by the team).
  • In analyses in the Teams Dashboard or Coaching Center, team results are hidden when three or fewer teams are analyzed and at least one team has low-trust mode enabled. This foils attempts to reverse-engineer the results of a team with low-trust mode by including teams that don't have low-trust mode enabled.

Once a team has enabled low-trust mode, only they can turn it off (as doing so requires the pin code).

How to know if teams use low-trust mode

In the Teams Dashboard, teams that have enabled low-trust mode are marked with an icon in the overview: image

If a team turns on low-trust mode, it indicates concerns about how its data will be used within the organization. Consequently, some functionality may be limited. As only teams can turn this off, we highly recommend directly engaging with teams and their concerns.

ℹī¸ Tip: Treat the activation of low-trust mode across multiple teams as a clear indicator that action is needed to address these concerns. Forcing teams to use Columinity is a recipe for disaster, as any data they provide will be too biased to be useful. We recommend a session where representatives of the teams meet with coaches and management to discuss clear work agreements, boundaries and norms, as well as clarify the benefits for everyone - particularly teams.