The challenge
Retaining control over their private data is one of the key challenges of this century for users. Attempts by legislators to help — such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU — are often based on the concept of informed consent. This assumes that users can decide according to their actual interest if they are provided with sufficient information, e.g., about how and by which actors their data will be processed. In practice, this is reflected in extensive privacy statements or pop-up windows, such as those informing about the use of cookies on various websites.
We know from prior work that users are often neither in a position to fully grasp the content of these usually complicated texts, nor are they motivated to spend the time necessary to do so. A new concept is required to ensure that users can make truly sovereign decisions about the handling of their data in everyday digital life.
Our approach
We are striving for the user-centered and user-group-sensitive development of a digital privacy companion in the form of a mobile app — Privacy Buddy — that combines three elements:
Convey the necessary knowledge
Privacy Buddy provides the knowledge about digital contexts that people need to actually make self-determined, informed decisions about how their data is handled.
Strengthen motivation
We draw on psychological motivation theories to address the needs that drive human behaviour — autonomy, competence and relatedness — which have rarely been considered in usable security and privacy so far.
Building on the Persuasive System Design framework, we identify principles that help people show and maintain privacy-aware behaviour over the long term.
Account for different user groups
Our user-centered development explicitly considers the specifics of different user groups. Elderly people are driven by different psychological needs than younger generations, and children and adolescents need to be addressed with a different level of knowledge than adults.
Privacy Buddy
The project's flagship result is Privacy Buddy — a privacy companion app that combines knowledge, motivation and user-group awareness to help people make self-determined, informed decisions in their everyday digital life.
