"Don’t take it personal" – Privacy and information in an algorithmic age
The project investigates the relations and interdependence between personal information and privacy. The basic arguments are that there is a disconnect between platform providers’ understanding of personal information and privacy, and users’ understanding of the same concepts -- and that informational privacy theories’ reliance on personal information as something objective and true, that directly reflects state of affairs needs to be re-conceptualized.
The aims are: i) to establish the characteristics of personal information, and determine how it relates to an individual’s preferences and activities, and ii) to suggest how a revised understanding of personal information may be used to re-conceptualize informational privacy. Both aims are supported by data collection about: a) users’ perceptions of profiling and privacy, and b) platform providers’ understanding of personal information and privacy, and their relations as well as measures taken to protect users’ privacy.
The project is lead by head of department Jens-Erik Mai. The project members are postdoc Sille Obelitz Søe, senior researcher Rikke Frank Jørgensen (the Danish Institute for Human Rights), associate professor Bjarki Valtýsson (Department of Arts and Cultural Studies) and associate professor Taina Bucher (Department of Media, Cognition and Communication).
Funding
The project has received DKK 5.751.089 in funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark.