Cumulative Revelations of Personal Data *

Lead Research Organisation: Northumbria University
Department Name: Fac of Arts, Design and Social Sciences

Abstract

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Description We designed two online methods, determined by the necessary move to enabling online participation of respondents during Lockdown, as opposed to the planned for face-to-face participatory design workshops. These methods directly built on the outcomes from the data narrative study, with the first one trialled with some of the same participants.

Findings included:
That our multi-method approach prompted changes in participants' thought or action concerning their personal online safety and approaches to mitigating risk. Knowledge was exchanged during the research interaction as well as across our wider multi-method approach (including the earlier data narrative study), improving participants' data literacy. The 'ongoingness' of digital traces requires careful management to cope with what Pink et al. (2018) call the 'processual element of the everyday'. Participants' coping strategies include retrospective curation of their information, using pseudonyms, entering fake information, encrypting data, changing privacy settings and using sparingly a particular technology e.g. location tracking.

The online Mural format enabled participants to articulate approaches to mitigating online risk and demonstrate their awareness of the care required to control and maintain separation between one's digital traces, e.g. between the public, private, personal and professional self, something that had been challenging for them in the earlier interviews. Mostly, participants discussed these separations and collision of traces from their own perspective and experiences, showing how the online tool and the case of 'Alex Smith' in combination with the discussions with the researcher encouraged some to narrate and self-disclose quite personal information.

It was apparent that participants thought digital traces only provide a fragment and/or an incomplete picture of a personality and their values, and that this partial representation could invite inaccurate or harmful inferences. Most were cognisant that the persistent function of someone's online information means that it is always contingent on its context of reception and 'not a reflection of who they are now'.

Grounded in these findings we went on the design a more extensive assemblage of 'Taylor Addison's' online information in collaboration with the Strathclyde team. This browser-based cyber safety tool has the dual aim of collecting research data while promoting respondents' awareness of the potential for diachronical (across traces) and synchronical (across time) functions of cumulative risk within digital traces, for deployment amongst a much wider population.
Exploitation Route The Home Office expressed interest in the applicability fo the latest tool for SMEs and young people/women and girls.
Sectors Education,Financial Services, and Management Consultancy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Security and Diplomacy
 
Description Despite the challenges of Lockdown we have begun to enable modest impact and intend to continue to build on this over the next year or so (beyond the grant period) by running live trials and deployments. Following positive feedback from running our earlier method in a school, we have created a more readily customisable browser-based version of the training tool. We demoed this in December 2022 at the Home Office in London. Built in Visual Studio, this version prioritises training and education around online safety, as opposed to data capture for research purposes. The tool enables highly relevant and timely content to be added for use with e.g., socio-geographically specific school groups, SMEs, young women etc. Further deployment of this tool will continue beyond the grant period.
First Year Of Impact 2022
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Societal
 
Description Cumulative Revelations University PhD Scholarship (UKRI level stipend and fees)
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Organisation Northumbria University 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2021 
End 12/2023
 
Description 'Alex Smith' tool used in youth work for raising awareness of online safety 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact The online 'Alex Smith' tool was used by a youth charity in North Shields to promotes awareness-raising of the cumulative, temporal aspects of online safety. Briggs provided the digital content and sufficient training to enable the experienced youth worker to run sessions, the first of which took place with year 10 pupils (aged around 14) in March 2022. The youth charity conducts a multiplicity of outreach/schools-based activities relating to post-digital aspects of personal safety (how on-line risks and threats can escalate into offline physical, psychological and reputational harms) and support young people in envisioning potential future consequences of of their online behaviours, to promote their agency around responsible personal information sharing and online identity management.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Cybersecurity in FinTech: Joining the Dots - Personal Data Security of FinTech employees 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation on the Northumbria design work package by Briggs and 30min demo of the "Alex Smith tool" with Briggs and Nash each facilitating a breakout room.

Other project investigators also presented. Around 20 participants in all from academia and external organisations.

The event was aimed at those working in FinTech and aligned activities.

The event presented mid-term findings from the EPSRC-funded Cumulative Revelations in Personal Data project, which examines:
- Ways in which people unintentionally reveal more information to others than they intend to across multiple online channels and over time.
- How this can create reputational and security risks to people and their employers.

This event involve a demo of our research method comprising a digital tool designed by the Northumbria team led by Briggs. It invites people to reflect on risks created when sharing personal information, and assists them in anticipating and managing these risks. CN and JB ran one of the \breakout rooms' from a larger event and invited discussions on the research's mid-term findings, and exploration around potential future directions for research within the FinTech community.
The event took place online on 25 May 2021 organised by the University of Strathclyde. Any requests for further information will have been directed to the PI of the project rather than our small team.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.engage.strath.ac.uk/event/791
 
Description Demonstrator Booth 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Approx. 50 information retrieval and behaviour professionals visited our demonstration booth at ACM SIGIR Conference 2022 to view and interact with our persona based scenarios tool for raising awareness about the threats and harms of cumulative revelations in online data.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022