Background

This event was an activity aimed at members of the general public and was designed to promote audience participation in the important topic of on-line privacy and consent. Participation took place from the start, when the audience was invited to use an electronic voting tool to take part in a short privacy survey. Next, physical theatre company, Bimbilibausa delivered a short play about a case of mistaken identity online and the privacy implications that ensue from it.

The play was developed from the privacy themes identified in the first year of VOME’s community research conducted here in Sunderland. Again, the audience participated by using the voting tool to vote on the privacy practices that the play’s lead character, Margareth, should have followed. The event closed with a discussion on on-line privacy issues and practical steps we all might take on-line. During the discussion the actors talked about their own experiences and how developed the play had changed their own on-line privacy practices.

The Play

The Context

The play is set in an office environment and examines the relationship between the three characters Margareth, John and “the Boss”. Using theatre enables us to explore how privacy and identity traverse on and off line environments.

The Film of the Play

Here you can watch the key scenes from the play, interlaced with explanations from the actors:
The film starts with an introduction to Bimbilibausa and then shows the opening scenes from the play. The opening scenes show a working day in the office and are introduced to the three characters and the metaphor of “computer inputting” is used to reflect the relationship hierarchy in the office.

The interactions in the office explores the ways in which :

• Office flirting develops through computer use
• Bullying / sexual harassment can be exacerbated through computer use
• On-line fights / wars take place

These opening scenes also reflect on the incongruity between office face to face interactions and interaction through the computer (ie computer interaction more intense than face to face)

The film explores the techniques for developing the play. Much of the source material came from VOME’s initial research output.

Next, the scenes focus on on-line privacy issues and show Margareth going on-line for her own use and enters a variety of sites some of which are pop ups, she goes to on-line purchasing, moves through a variety of sites. She ends up on a dating site.

In the last scenes, the topics of on and off line interaction are fused together where Margareth uses the Internet to control her office relationships.

Bimbilibausa theatre company at the ESRC Festival of Social Science for the VOME privacy project from VOME on Vimeo.

Reflections from the actors

“We chose to work in clown form as the red nose is the worlds smallest mask. Using masks for communication can distort realities, heighten the strength of intention, hide and also reveal information. The red nose primarily reveals information. The material and research we received from VOME helped us make these connections and parallels were drawn to create this first piece.

Fools historically intrude into conventional order. By placing the setting of the piece in an conventional office it represents our society as is and allows the audience to make real connections. Whilst following the research based storyline the audience engages with the characters and their actions that ultimately mirrors the general current behaviour of parts of our society.

The work we are doing with VOME is currently unique and therefore new and exciting for us to work with. It connects an age old tradition of looking at society and where we’re at with the added presence of ‘the clown’ or ‘the fool’ within this structure. Questions are thus raised about the prevailing order of the current state, creating debates and thought which thus forms directions for future behaviour and action.”

The VOME project has worked together with UK online to conduct a survey of privacy attitudes and behaviours. Focusing on our concerns about privacy while using the internet, the survey reveals that online identity theft is currently the greatest fear for internet users.

Other key concerns relate to individuals having their personal information compromised.  Among these concerns, finance features prominently, as does the exposure of personal information and the potential for individuals and companies to misrepresent themselves. Gender, length of internet experience and education levels all contribute to affecting the level of general concern.  The tracking of web pages visited by an individual is predominantly regarded as either harmful (43.1%) or both helpful and harmful (39.7%).  Very few regard it as purely beneficial.

These results form part of the backdrop to a project called ‘Visualisation and Other Methods of Expression’ (VOME), which aims to produce methods and tools for negotiating and engaging with on-line privacy and consent. These tools could help service users define, agree and check levels of privacy when using the internet and might help service providers respond more effectively to the service user’s privacy concerns.

Dr Lizzie Coles-Kemp, VOME Project Manager, comments, “The survey results are a useful stepping stone to helping us understand the bigger picture when it comes to on-line privacy practices and behaviours. We look forward to developing a more complete picture with the results from our qualitative fieldwork.”

VOME is an interdisciplinary research project funded by the Technology Strategy Board, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).  The VOME partners are the Information Security Group (Royal Holloway), Cranfield and Salford Universities, Sunderland City Council and Consult Hyperion.

The survey was developed by VOME researchers from existing privacy scales which have been previously used to measure privacy attitudes and behaviours. The use of existing scales enables VOME researchers to compare their results with previous surveys of this nature. The survey was administered via an online platform known as ConfirmIT provided by UK online. Participants were recruited from UK online’s research panel known as “myopinion”.

The total number of valid responses for the survey was 1048. Of the 1048 respondents, 49.8% (523) were male and 50.2% (525) were female and the mean age was 41.0 years (range: 18 – 82 years).

Although a large proportion of respondents had not personally experienced an invasion of privacy, many had heard or read about the use and potential misuse of customers’ personal information collected on the web. 45% indicated that they had heard or read about such incidents “somewhat frequently” and 16% had heard or read about such incidences “very frequently”. 31% had heard or read about such incidences “not too frequently” and only 4% had not heard or read about such incidences at all.

VOME is currently undertaking qualitative research to explore the trends identified in the survey in order to develop a deeper understanding of the privacy protection practices and how these can be improved to become more usable by wider sections of the community.

Copies of the survey and further information about VOME can be obtained from here or by contacting Claire Hudson  claire.hudson@rhul.ac.uk

This event provides an opportunity to share your thoughts about online identity and privacy. Beginning with a short performance to introduce the topic in a thought provoking manner, followed by a discussion and interactive activity to record your thoughts and conclusions.
If you are interested in attending this event, please contact us.

Dr. Lizzie Coles-Kemp, of the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, is a Primary Investigator on the Visualisation and Other Methods of Expression (VOME) project which is joint research between Cranfield University, Salford University, Royal Holloway (University of London), Sunderland City Council and Consult Hyperion. The project is funded by The Technology Strategy Board, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). In this podcast she talks about the VOME project and explains how the visualisation of privacy is fundamental to informed consent and therefore e-government and e-business.

Listen here in either [Podcast MPEG4] or [Sound-only MP3] format.

You can download this and other podcasts in both iPod (MP4) and MP3 format from the Consult Hyperion podcast page, where you can also subscribe to the podcast RSS feed. If you have iTunes, you can find the podcasts in the iTunes Store: just search for “Consult Hyperion” in the podcasts area and you can click and subscribe. Alternatively, you can click on this iTunes link.

Original Post: Digital Identity Forum (DIF)