#AnalyzeMyData campaign looks at the way personal data is being used

Today is Data Privacy/Protection Day 2016 and experts in the Horizon Digital Economy Research Institute at The University of Nottingham are launching a Twitter based campaign to look at the way personal digital data is being used and analysed by companies, government, third-sector organisations and academics.

The aim of the #AnalyzeMyData campaign is to increase public awareness of the ways in which data is used and misused and establish an evidence base of public opinion on these issues that can be used to support future policy discussions on this topic.

Dr Ansgar Koene, from the ESRC funded CaSMa—Citizen centric approaches to social media analysis, said: "Based on the increasing prevalence of data abuses we believe it is of vital importance that we reach the largest possible audience with this campaign, which we will not be able to achieve without support/collaboration with media organisations. The aim of the CaSMa project is to critically analyse and review the ethics of current practices in digital personal data usage from the perspective of the citizens whom the data is about."

The campaign will consist of daily tweets highlighting a past news story about data usage that involved questionable consent, and will include links to mini-surveys asking people's opinion about that particular case. The results of these mini-surveys will be posted and updated daily at the research project blog.

Some of the previous work in this project has included, a review of the university ethics review process regarding internet mediated research project (e.g. twitter data analysis); collaboration with the national iRights coalition on engaging with young people (13-17 years old) regarding their experience and concerns with internet usage; debates with academics (e.g. British Association of Applied Linguistics), lay people (e.g. Web We Want festival), SMEs and civil-rights organizations (e.g. Open Rights Groups); and active engagement with the Parliamentary inquiries on 'Online Platforms and the EU Digital Single Market' (Lords EU Internal Market sub-committee), the 'draft Instigative Powers Bill' (Science & Technology select committee) and 'Digital Skills' (Science & Technology select committee).