ERMeCC project over mobiel gebruik en privacy ontvangt NWO/NSF beurs

Het project wordt geleid door Jason Pridmore en Daniel Trottier, en het team wordt compleet gemaakt door Anouk Mols. Voor het project hebben de onderzoekers samengewerkt met Jessica Vitak (Assistant Professor aan de Univeristy of Maryland) en Michael Zimmer (Associate Professor aan de University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee). 

Het doel van deze beurs was volgens de NWO om steun te bieden aan een project dat zich bezighoudt met online privacy, waarbij bovendien ook een brug wordt geslagen tussen Nederlandse- en Amerikaanse onderzoekers.

Een korte (Engelstalige) samenvatting van het project 

The development of mobile and interconnected computing has, in many ways, positively affected the efficiency, convenience, and enjoyment of people’s everyday lives. At the same time, however, these connections and devices increase the potential for more pervasive forms of digitally mediated surveillance by media companies, marketers, governments, employers, and ISPs.

This project will evaluate mobile users’ mental models of privacy alongside perceived social costs (e.g., interpersonal and institutional surveillance), affordances (e.g., ubiquitous communication, facilitated social coordination), and (un)anticipated byproducts (e.g., routine upkeep of profiles and configuring settings) associated with the pervasive use of mobile technologies. This will be accomplished through a collaborative, multidisciplinary investigation of three cross-cutting ecosystems of mobile data sharing that highlight both emergent and longstanding privacy challenges associated with data surveillance: (1) health and fitness tracking, (2) mobile messaging, and (3) intelligent personal assistants.

The research starts by developing a preliminary understanding of privacy awareness and practices and will build into the development and implementation of a cross-cultural survey featuring a series of “privacy vignettes.” This will serve to evaluate the nuances in privacy concerns across individual characteristics and allow for a dissemination of findings to key stakeholders and policymakers. The research will assist in creating an international working group of researchers in this space and provide new insights into how people develop mental models of privacy and how mobile technologies are changing how people think about privacy and information disclosure.