User:Arcticocean/Ombuds commission

For legal and security reasons, the Wikimedia Foundation has decided to require two-factor authentication for this role.

	About the commission — Make a report — Email the commission — Discuss the commission
	Activity reports: 2024 • 2023 • 2022 • Earlier Published decisions

The Ombuds Commission investigates infringements of the Privacy Policy and related policies, including the Access to nonpublic personal data and global CheckUser and Oversight policies. The Commission acts on behalf of the Board of Trustees and has jurisdiction on all Wikimedia wikis. It does not investigate complaints relating to policies unrelated to the Privacy Policy. It may defer a complaint to local enforcement processes, such as arbitration committees. It will not investigate violations of a local CheckUser or Oversight policy or guideline unless a global policy might also have been violated.

Process

Complainants must apply in writing to the Commission for an investigation. The Commission will sift all applications and applications can be rejected at the sift stage. The Executive Director or general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation can also request an investigation or opinion from the Commission. The Commission can also investigate infringements on its own initiative but such investigations should be made only in the most serious cases.

During investigations, the Commission will examine all the circumstances and report back to the complainant. Where necessary, the Commission will also recommend further action to the Wikimedia Foundation, such as warning the respondent, providing re-training, or removing the respondent's access to non-public data. The Commission can also issue statements of practice, which communities should follow in future, or recommend suitable changes to policies or software.

The Commission takes legal advice from the Wikimedia Foundation on all investigations where policy has been infringed. This means that investigations can take weeks or months to conclude, because the Foundation is a charity and resources are limited. Complainants can periodically request updates on their case from the Commission or check the list of cases.

Membership

Commissioners are selected from the Wikimedia community by Wikimedia Foundation officials. A call for volunteers is issued each year in early October on the Wikimedia-L mailing list and on the talk page of this policy, as well as other project forums as appropriate. Commissioners sit for a 'term' which ends in February. In some terms, reserve and observer members are also appointed to provide additional time or expertise.

While investigating cases, Commissioners can require respondents to provide explanations or information which relates to the matter under investigation. Commissioners also have a number of access rights on all Wikimedia wikis.

The current Commissioners (with their home wiki, languages spoken, and their appointment end date) are:

だ＊ぜ (zh.wiki) (zh, yue, wuu, lzh, en-4, ja-3) – 2026
Ameisenigel (de.wiki, wikidatawiki) (de, en-4) – 2026
User:Arcticocean (en, sco-3) – 2026
Bennylin (id.wiki) (id, pea, en-5, jv-4, zh-3, ms-3) – 2025
Daniuu (nl.wiki) (nl, en-4) – 2025
Doğu (tr.wiki) (tr, en-3) – 2026
Emufarmers (en.wiki) (en) – 2026
Faendalimas (wikispecies) (en, pt-3) – 2026
MdsShakil (bn.wiki, bn.wikibooks) (bn, en-3) – 2025
Minorax (commons, meta, simple.wikt, wikidata) (en-5, zh-5) – 2025
Nehaoua (ar.wiki, fr.wiki) (ar-n, fr-4) – 2026
Renvoy (uk.wiki) (uk, ru-4, en-3, pl-3) – 2026
RoySmith (en.wiki) (en) – 2026

There are no reserve Commissioners this term. There is one observer:

Vermont (en.wiki, meta, simple.wiki) (en) – Steward-Observer – 2025

See also automatically generated list. For the prior membership, see here.

Submission

Applications for an investigation should be submitted to the Commission using the submission form.

If you are unable to use the submission form, you should email the Commission, giving all the information that is required from complainants.

When submitting an application, please specify which policy has been violated and, if the wiki has an Arbitration Committee (or a similar committee), whether you have tried to resolve the violation through them. Remember that the Commission only investigates the privacy-related policies and it is not a general appeals body.

The Commission will discuss the application with the respondent and any other relevant people. If any information in the report is personal or confidential, you should specify that in your report. You should not disclose any personal or confidential information if its publication could adversely affect you.

Open cases

The Commission maintains a public and anonymised list of open and past cases.

After an infringement has been reported to the Commission, if necessary it will be treated as an application to investigate. The complainant will receive an acknowledgement and asked for any further information.

The application will be sifted. If the request is within the scope of the Commission and the Commission decides to investigate, a case will be opened and recorded on the public list. The complainant will receive any subsequent updates by email only.

The Commission will do whatever it considers necessary to find out whether or not there was a breach of the policies or a non-compliance or conflict of local policies with the global ones. Once the case has closed, we will give the result of our investigation to the requester, and if there was indeed a breach of the privacy policy, we will inform the user who was investigated and if necessary inform the Board of Trustees and recommend removing OS, CU or steward rights from the respondent.

Practice Statements

The Commission maintains a list of statements of practice which assist volunteers and staff in understanding and complying with the privacy-related policies.