Photos to Remember, Photos to Forget

Each year makes it easier to accumulate large numbers of photos and videos in the social and personal digital space. Their long-term existence is mostly driven by chance rather than by clear guidelines or rules for archiving them. Thus, unfortunately, cases of nonintended both the exposure and disappearance of personal photos happen much too often. This article mainly focuses on this question: What should we remember and thus archive, and what can we forget? The authors describe the European project ForgetIT (www.forgetIT-project.eu), which is investigating the introduction of a form of digital or managed forgetting into information management environments. The project focuses on the idea of making more conscious decisions about which content is really important, and thus should be preserved safely, and which content we can (and should) forget.