Critical big data literacy tools—Engaging citizens and promoting empowered internet usage

Abstract

Datafied societies need informed public debate about the implications of data science technologies. At present, internet users are often unaware of the potential consequences of disclosing personal data online and few citizens have the knowledge to participate in such debates. This paper argues that critical big data literacy efforts are one way to address this lack of knowledge. It draws on findings from a small qualitative investigation and discusses the effectiveness of online critical big data literacy tools. Through pre and post use testing, the short- and longer-term influence of these tools on people’s privacy attitudes and behavior was investigated. The study’s findings suggested that the tools tested had a predominantly positive initial effect, leading to improved critical big data literacy among most participants, which resulted in more privacy-sensitive attitudes and internet usage. When analyzing the tools’ longer-term influence, results were more mixed, with evidence suggesting for some that literacy effects of the tools were short-lived, while for others they led to more persistent and growing literacy. The findings confirm previous research noting the complexity of privacy attitudes and also find that resignation toward privacy is multi-faceted. Overall, this study reaffirms the importance of critical big data literacy and produces new findings about the value of interactive data literacy tools. These tools have been under-researched to date. This research shows that these tools could provide a relevant means to work toward empowering internet users, promoting a critical internet usage and, ideally, enabling more citizens to engage in public debates about changing data systems.

What is critical big data literacy and how can it be implemented?

“…Citizens need to recognise risks and benefits related to the increasing implementation of data collection, analytics, automation, and predictive systems and need to be able to scrutinise the structural and systemic levels of these changing big data systems. Thus, I suggest that critical big data literacy in practice should mean an awareness, understanding and ability to critically reflect upon big data collection practices, data uses and the possible risks and implications that come with these practices, as well as the ability to implement this knowledge for a more empowered internet usage (see also Sander, 2020).…”

Human-centric Personal Data Protection and Consenting AssistantSystems: Towards a Sustainable Digital Economy

“…As a result, many scientists have called for novel interdisciplinary solutions to support and empower [6] end-users to access their fundamental right of online privacy. Among others, this includes societal measures (such as be er public education and increase of public awareness [13,14,15,16]), economic measures (such as novel business models [17]), political and legal measures (such as new regulations and standards [18,19]), and technological solutions (such as privacy enhancement technologies [20], privacy by design approaches [21], user-centric personal data ecosystems [22], personal vaults [23], personal databoxes [24], encryption-based architectures for management of personal data [25], browser-plugins for blocking advertisements and tracking cookies, automated mechanisms for the communication of users' privacy decisions [26], etc).…”

Critical is not political

“…A final entry point into data literacy as empowerment is that of personal data literacies (Pangrazio & Selwyn, 2019) and critical data literacy (Sander, 2020a(Sander, , 2020b. Like Crusoe (2016), these theories build on the idea that the increased reliance on data for economic, political and social gains requires individuals to have an awareness and understanding of the risks and benefits of it.…”

“…When we centre data in educational approaches, whose literacy practices are then valued and made visible? This article will build on the discussions around redefining data literacy as empowerment through reflecting on a decade of work as an NGO practitioner in which I, along with other colleagues, have debated and created a range of guides, materials and training approaches that have been conceptualized by others as critical data literacy tools (Sander, 2020a) or folk pedagogies of data (Pangrazio & Sefton-Green, 2020). These products include, amongst other things, the Digital First Aid Kit, Me and My Shadow, the Data Detox Kit, Totem, and the Low Tech Canvas Against High Tech Surveillance.…”

“…The categorization of data literacy tools points to a wide range of resources created both within and outside of educational institutions (Pangrazio & Sefton-Green, 2020;Sander, 2020a). My reflection in this article relates specifically to those resources that have been created within the third sector, and are aimed at increasing literacy of human rights defenders, civil society organizations, journalists and activists on issues related to surveillance, digital security and data profiling.…”