Personal privacy is becoming an increasingly important concern as social media and Web 2.0 tools dramatically increased the amount of private data that users share on the Web, and smartphones now make users actively share location data through a variety of applications and services. The purpose of the Privacy Theories and Frameworks project is to reconsider the meaning of privacy and the tools and frameworks with which to study it.
The first line of work within this project is how new political and technological developments impact personal privacy: As the Internet of Things is starting to develop, we must consider how connecting ever-more devices to the web creates new privacy threats and also changes the ongoing negotiation about the meaning of privacy. After Snowden's revelations, we must consider privacy within the frame of ubiquitous surveillance by state actors in a multipolar world. As we learn more about the workings of social machines, we may also reconsider the meaning of 'group privacy rights' by viewing it in the light of the informational requirements for a social machine to function effectively.
The second line of work grounds theoretical understandings of privacy in the real world. We investigate the complex reasons behind why people do not act in accordance with their own state privacy preferences, and how the ways information is being presented to users influences privacy attitudes.
