Takedown Policy Template

Digital libraries and repositories collect, preserve, and provide access to a broad range of materials from diverse origins and time periods for the purposes of education and research. These materials are made freely available online if:

• There are no known copyright protections or traditional knowledge intellectual property (TKIP) protections;
• There are no known cultural restrictions such as those indicated by Traditional Knowledge/Biocultural Labels or Notices for institutions and researchers;
• [Institution Name] owns the intellectual property rights, or;
• Permissions were secured from donors either via the original donor agreement, a separate contract, assigned open creative commons licenses;
• Meets Fair Use doctrine, see U.S. Copyright and Stanford fair use explanations;
• No high risk or sensitive information/data is included or exposed.

Note: the above list is not a comprehensive list of factors that should be considered when making digital collections available online. Please see Considerations for writing a Takedown Policy for additional ideas.

Even with these precautions, some materials can include content that is considered sensitive, offensive, harmful, or a threat to personal privacy or safety. While [Institution/Collection Name] is committed to preserving an accurate and complete historical record we acknowledge that it is not always appropriate for all materials to be openly available. Therefore [Institution Name] will provide a way for individuals to report content in our repositories whose public access should be reconsidered. Please note that no policy can foresee and address every situation. Therefore, every request is reviewed on a case by case basis.

Potential actions that can be requested include (but are not limited to):

• Removal of digital object from [Institution] websites
• De-indexing of digital object
  • This removes or prevents an object from appearing in search engines or system search results but does not remove the object from the website (for instance, the object can be accessed by anyone with a direct link.)
• Suppression of digital object
  • The item remains in the “back-end” of the [Institution]’s website, but cannot be publicly viewed and/or only metadata can be publicly viewed on the website.
• Restriction of digital object
  • The item remains on the [Institution]’s website, but can only be viewed by authorized people/groups.
• Including a content warning
  • The digital object remains on the [Institution]’s website and is accessible through searching or direct links but requires a person to click through an acknowledgement that what they’re about to see may be offensive, disturbing, sensitive, etc.
• Redacting portions of the digital object
  • The item remains on the [Institution]’s website but the concerning portion of the object is concealed (for instance, a black box is placed over portions of text.)
• Editing or updating [Institution] supplied metadata
  • The item remains on the [Institution]’s website but the metadata (information supplied by [Institution] that is used to find the object during searching) is edited or updated (for instance, to remove or correct offensive terminology or remove personally identifiable information.)

Creator and rights holder attributions are displayed on the item record whenever possible, as well as guidance on cultural norms or licenses that describe appropriate access, use, and/or reuse, such as the Traditional Knowledge/Biocultural LabelsTraditional Knowledge Labels and Notices, or Creative Commons Licenses.