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European Data Protection: Coming of Age pp 241–265Cite as

Privacy by Design Through a Social Requirements Analysis of Social Network Sites form a User Perspective

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Abstract

The paper operationalizes the concept of privacy by design for social network sites (SNS), defined as evaluating and embedding privacy in the development and adjustment of SNS technology. More in particular we identify the necessary social requirements of SNS in order to optimize the privacy from a user perspective. For this, one of the application domains of privacy by design, the seven laws of identity proposed by Kim Cameron, is assessed and adjusted. This should help to mitigate the responsibilization of individuals who use or are affected by social networking services.

SPION (Security and Privacy for Online Social Networks) (www.cosic.esat.kuleuven.be/spion) is a 4-year project (1/1/2011–31/12/2014) in the SBO programme for strategic basic research with societal goal, funded by IWT (government agency for Innovation by Science and Technology) in Flanders (Belgium). The research project is a cooperation between COSIC/ESAT/Department of Electrical Engineering (K.U.Leuven), DISTRINET/Department of Computer Science (K.U.Leuven), DTAI/Department of Computer Science (K.U.Leuven), ICRI/Faculty of Law (K.U.Leuven), IBBT-SMIT/Department of Communication Studies (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), OWK/Department of Educational Studies (Universiteit Gent) and Heinz College (Carnegie Mellon University), coordinated by KUL-COSIC.

EMSOC (User Empowerment in a Social Media Culture) (www.emsoc.be) is a 4-year project (1/12/2010–30/11/2014) in the SBO programme for strategic basic research with societal goal, funded by IWT (government agency for Innovation by Science and Technology) in Flanders (Belgium). The research project is a cooperation between Vrije Universiteit Brussel (IBBT-SMIT & LSTS), Universiteit Gent (IBBT-MICT & C&E) and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (ICRI & CUO), coordinated by IBBT-SMIT.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Manuel Castells, Communication Power. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  2. 2.

    Pew Internet & American Life Project, http://pewinternet.org.

  3. 3.

    Digimeter, http://digimeter.be.

  4. 4.

    Mark Deuze, “Media life.” (Media, Culture and Society 33, 2011), 137–148.

  5. 5.

    Kate Raynes-Goldie, “Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Undertanding privacy in the age of Facebook,” First Monday 15 (2010), accessed November 30, 2011, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2775/2432.

  6. 6.

    Raynes-Goldie, “Aliases creeping.”

  7. 7.

    Danah Boyd, “Taken out of context: American teen sociality in networked publics” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 2008).

  8. 8.

    Danah Boyd and Eszter Hargittai, “Facebook privacy settings: who cares?” First Monday 15 (2010), accessed November 30; 2011, http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/3086/2589.

  9. 9.

    Kim Cameron, “The laws of identity”, Kim Cameron’s Identity Weblog.

  10. 10.

    Ann Cavoukian. Privacy by Design: take the challenge. Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, Canada, 2009.

  11. 11.

    European Parliamentarytechnology assessment, http://eptanetwork.org/what.php.

  12. 12.

    Wim Smit and Ellen van Oost. De Wederzijds beïnvloeding van technologie en maatschappij – een technology assessment-benadering, (Bussum: Uitgeverij Coutinho, 1999).

  13. 13.

    Seda Gürses, Carmela Troncoso and Claudia Diaz,“Engineering Privacy by Design”, (Paper presented at the annual CPDP conference, Brussels, January 29–30, 2011).

  14. 14.

    Ann Cavoukian, “Privacy by Design.”

  15. 15.

    Ann Cavoukian, “Privacy by Design.”

  16. 16.

    Seda Gürses et al.,“Engineering Privacy.”

  17. 17.

    Roger Silverstone and Leslie Haddon. “Design and domestication of infomration and communication technologies: technical change and everyday life”, in Communication by design: the politics of information and communication technologies, ed. Robin Mansell and Roger Silverstone. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996): 44–47. – Thomas Berker, Maren Hartmann, Yves Punic and Katie Ward. Domestication of media and technology. (Berkshire, Open University Press, 2005): 255.

  18. 18.

    Wendy van den Broeck, “From analogue to digital: the silent (r)evolution? A qualitative study on the domestication of interactive digital television in flanders.” (Ph.D. dissertation, Free University of Brussels, 2011)

  19. 19.

    Hughie Mackay and Gareth Gillespie. “Extending the social shaping of technology apprach: ideology and appropriation.” (Social Studies of Science 22, 1992): 685–716. – Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch, How users matter: the co-construction of users and technologies. London. (London University Press, 2003).

  20. 20.

    Lotte Vermeir, Tim Van Lier, Jo Pierson and Bram Lievens, “Making the online complementary to the offline: social requirements to foster the ‘sens of community” Paper presented at IAMCR conference, Sweden, 2008.

  21. 21.

    Ann Cavoukian, “Privacy by Design.”

  22. 22.

    Tom Olzak, “Unified Identity Mangement”, (InfosecWriter, 2006).

  23. 23.

    Kim Cameron, “The laws of identity”, Kim Cameron’s Identity Weblog.

  24. 24.

    Kim Cameron, “Laws of identity.”

  25. 25.

    Kim Cameron, “Laws of identity.”

  26. 26.

    The seven laws presented here are entirely based on the document of Kim Cameron “Laws of identity.”

  27. 27.

    Tom Olzak, “Unified Identity Management”

  28. 28.

    Ralf De Wolf and Jo Pierson, “‘Symbolic Interactionist perspective on linking privacy and identity on social network sites” Congres paper for ICA 2012. (Submitted)

  29. 29.

    With this problem we refer to the fact that people often do not know what happens with their personally identifiable information (PII), with questions like, ‘who gathers it?’ and ‘why do they gather it?’ – Daniel Solove, “Privacy and power: computer databases and metaphors for information privacy”, (Stanford law review 53, 2001),1393.

  30. 30.

    With context collision we refer to the collapsing or blurring of different contexts online – Danah Boyd, “Taken out of context.”

  31. 31.

    Danah Boyd, “Taken out of context.”

  32. 32.

    Danah Boyd, “Taken out of context.”

  33. 33.

    Forced disclosure refers to the ongoing process of clarifying private information through private information. A problem, combined with context collison that can cause annoying problems for the user – Jeffrey Rosen, “Out of context: the purposes of privacy.” (Social Research 68, 2001): 209–222.

  34. 34.

    These concepts are used within the framework of Symbolic Interaction and can be seen as two sides of the same coin in identity formation. The former is everything a person does to bind himself with a specific identity. The latter is the reaction of others in confirming the announced identity.

  35. 35.

    John Hewitt, Self and Society: a symbolic interactionist social psychology (10th ed.). (Boston Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 2007), 167.

  36. 36.

    Danah boyd, “Taken out of context.”

  37. 37.

    Jeffery Rosen, “Out of context.”

  38. 38.

    John Hewitt, Self and society, 75.

  39. 39.

    Smartschool is a commercial digital learning environment (DLE) owned by Smartbit in Belgium.

  40. 40.

    Howard Rheingold. The virtual community: homesteading on the electric frontier. (USA: MIT Press, 2000).

  41. 41.

    Malcom Parks, “Social network sites as virtual communities” in A networked self: identity, community and culture on social network sites, ed. Zizi Paparachissi (New York and London, Routledge, 2011).

  42. 42.

    Gerard Delanty, Community, (London and New York, Routledge, 2003).

  43. 43.

    Zygmunt Bauman. “Identity in the globalizing world.” In Identity in question, ed. Anthony Elliot and Paul du Gay (Sage publications, 2008). – Gerard Delanty, Community – Craig Calhoun, “Community without propinquity revisited: communications technology and the transformation of the urban public sphere”, Sociological inquiry 68 (1998): 373–397.

  44. 44.

    Cliff Lampe et al., “a face(book) in the crowd.” Paper presented at the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work – CSCW, Canada, 2006.

  45. 45.

    Danah boyd and Nicole Ellison, “social network sites: Definiton, history, and scholarship”, Journal Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2007).

  46. 46.

    Danah boyd, “Friends, friendster, and myspace top 8: writing community into being on social network sites”, First Monday 11 (2006).

  47. 47.

    Daniel Miller and Don Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach, (London: UK: Berg, 2000).

  48. 48.

    Malcom Parks, “Social network sites.”

  49. 49.

    “Pew Internet and American Life Project.”

  50. 50.

    Shanyang Zhao et. al., “Identity construction on facebook: Digital empowerment in achored relationships”, Computers in Human behaviour 24 (2008): 1816–1836.

  51. 51.

    The concept of nonymous is used to constrast with anonymous.

  52. 52.

    Ralf De Wolf and Jo Pierson, “‘Symbolic Interactionist perspective.”

  53. 53.

    Ralf De Wolf and Jo Pierson, “‘Symbolic Interactionist perspective.”

  54. 54.

    Danah boyd, “Networked privacy”, http://www.danah.org/papers/talks/2011/PDF2011.html .

  55. 55.

    The Symbolic Interactionist School highlights the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the group it is embedded in. Moreover, it studies the way society is created through interaction.

  56. 56.

    John Hewitt, Self and society, 40–44.

  57. 57.

    Sherry Turkle, “Alone together: why we expect more from technology and less from each other”, (New York: Basic Books, 2011).

  58. 58.

    Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, The social shaping of technology: how the refrigerator got its hum (Open University Press, 1985): 1.

  59. 59.

    Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, The social shaping of technology, 9.

  60. 60.

    Donald MacKenzie and Judy Wajcman, The social shaping of technology, 10.

  61. 61.

    Steven Seidman, Contested Knowledge: social theory today 3th edition (UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2004): 81.

  62. 62.

    Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological theory of Religion (New York: Anchor, 1967): 4.

  63. 63.

    Robin Williams and David Edge, “the shaping of technology”, Research policy 25 (1996): 865–899.

  64. 64.

    Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, “The social construction of facts and artifacts: or how the sociology of science and the sociology of technology might benefit each other” in the social construction of technology systems, ed. W.E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes & T.J. Pinch. (1987): 40–48.

  65. 65.

    Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, “The social construction of facts”, 48.

  66. 66.

    Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy, 4.

  67. 67.

    Steven Seidman, Contested Knowledge, 83.

  68. 68.

    We define self-alienation as the process in which the individual looks at his own behaviour from a third person point of view. We do not denote this concept as solely negative nor positive. However a certain degree of self-alienation seems desirable.

  69. 69.

    Steven Seidman, Contested Knowledge, 83.

  70. 70.

    Laurent van der Maesen and Alan Walker, “Social quality: the theoretical state of affair”, European Foundation of Social Quality (2002).

  71. 71.

    Robin Mansell, “From digital divides to digital entitlements in knowledge societies”, Current sociology 50 (2002): 407–426.

  72. 72.

    Robin Mansell, “From digital divides”, 409.

  73. 73.

    Danah Boyd, “Why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life”, MacArthur Foundation Series on digital learning – youth, identity, and digital media 26 (2007).

  74. 74.

    Manuel Castells, “communication power and couter-power in the network society”, International Journal of Communication 1 (2007): 238–266.

  75. 75.

    Daniel Weitzner, “Information accountability”, Communication of the ACM 51 (2008): 82–87.

  76. 76.

    Christian Fuchs, “New Media, Web 2.0 and Surveillance”, Sociology Compass 5 (2011): 134–147.

  77. 77.

    Nigel Thrift, Knowing capitalism, (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2005).

  78. 78.

    Nicole Cohen, “the valorization of surveillance: Towards a political economy of Facebook”, Democratic Communiqué 22 (2008): 5–22.

  79. 79.

    Mark Coté and Jennifer Pybus, “Learning to immaterial labour 2.0: MySpace and social networks”, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization 7 (2007): 88–106.

  80. 80.

    Nicole Cohen, “the valorization of surveillance.”

  81. 81.

    Mark Coté and Jennifer Pybus, “Learning to immaterial labour 2.0.”

  82. 82.

    We want to make clear that in an online world there are different laws and regulations on how to act. To simply copy-paste offline regulations, as in presenting clearly defined barriers (e.g. partial identities, circles, smartlists) is denying the uniqueness of SNS.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IBBT-SMIT, VUB, 9, Pleinlaan, 1050, Brussels, Belgium

    Ralf De Wolf, Rob Heyman & Jo Pierson

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  1. Ralf De Wolf
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  2. Rob Heyman
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Correspondence to Ralf De Wolf .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Pleinlaan 2, Brussel, 1050, Belgium

    Serge Gutwirth

  2. , TILT, Tilburg University, Warandelaan 2, Tilburg, 5037 AB, Netherlands

    Ronald Leenes

  3. , LSTS, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Avenue de la Plaine 2, Brussels, 1050, Belgium

    Paul de Hert

  4. Research Centre for Information, Technology & Law, University of Namur, Rempart de la Vierge 5, Namur, 5000, Belgium

    Yves Poullet

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De Wolf, R., Heyman, R., Pierson, J. (2013). Privacy by Design Through a Social Requirements Analysis of Social Network Sites form a User Perspective. In: Gutwirth, S., Leenes, R., de Hert, P., Poullet, Y. (eds) European Data Protection: Coming of Age. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5170-5_11

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