Digital Privacy

File
The Editors
18/10/2021

Digital privacy is a real challenge. Or if we do not want to use euphemisms: it is a fundamental problem that touches upon the fundaments of what we call democracy. All large social media platforms are key actors in what Shoshana Zuboff has called surveillance capitalism. Our data is used to produce surplus value and it the process, it destroys our fundamental right to privacy. In this file we look at the big platforms, and the more niched ones from a privacy angle. Can we still have privacy in the digital age? What should be done by our governments and what can we do as citizen's in this digital world? Read all about it in this new Diggit File.

 

Digital privacy

A phone screen showing the Tiktok app icon

Tiktok's privacy paradox

Article
Marieke Weeda
09/06/2021
8 minutes to read

Privacy on Tiktok is something that has been subject to many controversies and lawsuits, but paradoxically their usage of accurate data for hyper-personalization is by many users also greatly appreciated.

Proctorio and the Panopticon: Privacy issues during the pandemic

Article
Carmen Gabriela Lupu
30/11/2020
9 minutes to read

This article explores the privacy risks that Proctorio and similar apps come with. In 2020, students had to perform their academic activities from home, including exams. Ensuring their integrity, however, comes with a violation of privacy.

Women being watched by cameras

Women and online privacy: Understanding the privacy paradox

Paper
Rebecca de Jongh
07/09/2020
9 minutes to read

Women find themselves at a crossroads where their online presence could lead to empowerment or to added scrutiny. What is the privacy paradox and what happens to women when they face it?

What is 'Live Facial Recognition' and how dangerous is it?

Article
Lea Goeron
22/05/2020
11 minutes to read

In a more and more digitalised world new technologies are on the rise. This article explores what live facial recognition is and what dangers and possible threats it introduces.

gravedigging, digital shaming, digital gravedigging, social media celebrities

Online gravedigging, identity and privacy

Column
Mingyi Hou
10/02/2020
11 minutes to read

This article analyzes gravedigging as a digital practice, and illustrates its roles in online shaming and celebrity image management activities.

Web 2.0 sees us.

Why we let Web 2.0 become the modern-day Stasi

Article
Lisa van Turnhout
11/01/2020
14 minutes to read

This article contemplates how our "culture of connectivity" brings forth privacy issues reminding us of government surveillance in East Germany. How does this work, and how do we all contribute to this culture?

Self-Tracking Data and its Commercial Uses

Article
Marieke Hendriks
07/11/2019
14 minutes to read

The commercialization of self-tracking data introduces new privacy risks as a consequence of the 'biovalue' that health and medical information have in the digital data economy. 

In this video Ralf de Wolf discusses the ways in which we need privacy in order to have a well functioning democracy, and the ways in which our privacy and our society are being threatened by a misuse of new technologies.

Can ancestry tests become a threat to our privacy?

Article
Carmen Gabriela Lupu
22/05/2019
11 minutes to read

With the increasing popularity of ancestry tests, having our DNA used by big corporations might pose a threat to our privacy. This article analyzes the possible impact of such data-driven businesses on our lives.

Tinder

Tinder privacy is not going to happen

Article
Nataliia Vdovychenko
10/05/2019
16 minutes to read

Tinder has managed to collect millions of users despite its disturbing lack of privacy. Why does Tinder fail to secure individuals' data, and why are users still willing to take the risk to keep swiping? 

Intentional illiteracy and the problem of digital agreements

Article
Ugur Dulger
01/05/2019
8 minutes to read

This article operationalizes the concept of ‘digital agreements’ and connects it to widespread problem of ‘intentional illiteracy’; which can be defined as users' neglect in reading electronic legal documents.

surveillance capitalism, capitalism, google, facebook

The age of surveillance capitalism ( Shoshana Zuboff)

Review
Ico Maly
13/02/2019
12 minutes to read

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff deserves a productive public and academic debate. It should not only be read and discussed by a broad audience. Scholars across disciplines must engage with it. 

Surveillance capitalism

Wiki
Surveillance capitalism is an economic order and logic that claims human experience and behavior as free raw material for commercial practices of extraction, prediction, and sales.
fingerprint scanning

Why biometric data is not safe anymore

Article
Nataliia Vdovychenko
16/11/2018
7 minutes to read

Biometric data plays a huge role in our everyday lives. We use it to unlock our phones, for bank payments, memberships and travelling. But do we ever think about risks connected to our biometric privacy?

Five years after the Snowden revelations

Column
Piia Varis
12/06/2018
8 minutes to read

Five years after the Snowden revelations, we're still more concerned with technological solutionism and individualistic models of privacy than addressing privacy as a common good.

GDPR

We're all data subjects now: the citizen in the European GDPR

Column
Jan Blommaert
21/05/2018
7 minutes to read

The new European GDPR generalizes the notion of the "data subject". But what exactly is the data subject? And how does it fit into a regulation which is fundamentally about the trading of Big Data?

GetContact app

GetContact: another threat to our privacy?

Article
Nataliia Vdovychenko
02/03/2018
5 minutes to read

GetContact is a recent app that got its wave of hype in February 2018. The official aim of GetContact is to block spam messages and identify calls on your phone. However, it can also be viewed as another way to threaten our privacy.