Personal privacy and the digitization process

Data and the digital transformation of society are expected to transform our era as much as oil did in the 19th century. The result is supposed to be new innovations and services, sustainable business models, climate improvements and safer, more equal societies.

This transition is based on access to data on the lives and habits of individuals, e.g. in the form of welfare and health data, societal infrastructure, economic transactions and social media.

On the one hand, the prerequisite is that these data must be made available, shared, coordinated and processed by various actors in areas such as trade and industry, security and welfare for the development of new services and optimization of resources. On the other hand, people are concerned about their privacy, both in relation to data collection about them in general, and as regards their online activities.

This conflict lies at the very heart of the project, in which the researchers intend to study the tension arising between individual privacy and the digitization process driven by businesses as well as the UN, the EU, the Swedish government and others.

Previous research has shown that many people refrain from sharing their data, or try to protect them in other ways. Even the majority of people who choose to share information about themselves, e.g. by using various digital services such as social media or e-commerce, report that it is very important to them that their online activities remain private. So the idea that data should be shared and made available in the way necessary for a digital transformation of society is by no means a given for many of those whose data are supposed to facilitate this societal development.

What motives do people have for participating in, or trying to avoid being part of, a data-driven future? More specifically, the project addresses the following questions:

  1. How do people reflect over, and react to, the risks and advantages of their data being used?
  2. How are attitudes and fears about data gathering expressed in data activism (in favor of or against extensive use of data), and what can we learn from the strategies that data activists use?
  3. In what circumstances do people see use of their data as legitimate or illegitimate, and what are the key factors in their assessments?

By addressing these questions the DINO project is expected to contribute to our understanding of people’s motives for participating in, or trying to avoid participating in, a data-driven future. This understanding is vital in order to bring about a digital transformation in a way that people perceive to be legitimate and defensible in an open democracy.

Project: 
“Data Is the New Oil” (DINO): Digital transformation – negotiating societal benefits and personal integrity”

Principal investigator:
Professor Coppélie Cocq

Co-investigators:
Umeå universitet
Jesper Enbom
Stefan Gelfgren
Lars Samuelsson

Institution:
Umeå University

Grant:
SEK 4.5 million