Consent Tracker
In a world where digital privacy is a distant dream, Consent Tracker is a platform that aims to put control back in the hands of users in an easy, fuss-free manner.
We’ve all seen it before; you want to use or download a new digital platform or app, and you get a prompt that requests for access to your data. This can be anything from cookies to your contacts to your browsing history, depending on what the service requires. This of course, usually comes accompanied by lengthy terms and conditions legal document. Expecting every user to read through the entire document is highly optimistic.
This project explores how people interact with digital services and the experience of consent. I examine the relationship between users and businesses to understand what both parties experience and what needs to happen for it to be a fair trade-off between both parties. Additionally, it will also examine the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance to better understand human behaviour and how it applies itself in this context.
How might we enable users to be more discerning and keep track of their decisions, while helping businesses strive to put privacy at the forefront of their values?
The Consent Tracker helps you to keep track of your consent in the digital sphere.
It breaks down the different ways your data is being accessed by companies and features a clean up function that helps you keep your devices invasion-free. Additionally it also notifies you of potential data breaches and keeps you up to date with the latest changes to your data policies in the simplest of ways.
Primary Research
For starters, a survey was done and showed that people generally claim that digital privacy is important to them, however their actions show otherwise.
This is known as cognitive dissonance—where one’s beliefs don’t align with what they are feeling and doing.
In academic research, studies have shown that one way to reduce cognitive dissonance is to create a new belief, in this case, it can be one that intercept’s a user’s experience journey.
Interviewing Users and Experts
The users, in this case, were shortlisted based on people who claimed that digital data privacy was important to them, but their actions showed otherwise. These are the group of people who experience dissonance and the specific target group. Questions for the users were centered around their challenges and concerns when giving up their data, and what it takes for them to trust a company.
Experts I spoke to included data privacy activists as well as people who have experience in data protection and security. Questions for the experts were centered around what their thoughts were on the current conversations surrounding data privacy, and what the ideal scenario would be in a privacy-first world.
Key Findings & Synthesis
The 3 major themes that emerged were: Self-awareness & Dissonance, Lack of control, Intrusion.
“Maybe they asked for consent but I didn’t see, so it’s my fault.”
“I’m reckless and irresponsible. I consent for the convenience.”
“Social media is definitely a double-edged sword.”
On one hand, a company having access to all this data means one’s sensitive information, as well as interests and habits. The sensitivity, priority and importance of each one of this information are highly subjective to each individual. The current model requests for consent at a sweeping level, it is an all-or-nothing approach.
“I’m resigned to the fact that my data is all over the place, I feel powerless that I’m not able to do anything about it.”
“In a lot of cases, I consent because I have no choice.”
“The data scandals are bad but you don’t see how it personally affects you.”
There was general hopelessness when speaking to users, that they felt it was “too late” to reverse anything. This mostly stemmed from the fact that they felt that their lives were too intertwined with all these digital platforms that it was difficult to remove themselves. But still, users find it hard to reconcile how these might personally affect them, although they might have heard of data breach and scandals before.
“It feels like everything that I put out in the digital sphere is permanent.”
“Asking for my preferences to personalise my content is okay.”
“That being said, I also honestly couldn’t care less if a company discovered that I was into sneakers from accessing my personal data.”
Some users had remarked that they were concerned over how long these companies hold onto their data. This shows that there is a need to address the ageing of data and that there needs to be a long-term solution that can answer how long companies are allowed to hold onto data, or simply a way to remind users that their data is still being accessed by these companies.
Things such as receiving personalized ads are received differently by different people. Some do not care and even find it helpful sometimes, just to receive more options when making a purchase. They understand that this is tied to revenue and business models because having access to this data means that they can feed it back into their business and further improve it or push for more sales. It seems that what is lacking here is a clear consensus and transparency between both parties, on where exactly this data is going and what it is being used for. This feeling of intrusion can be reduced if users can see what types of data is being accessed and where exactly it is going.
