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

Abstract

With the growing digital transformation, increasingly more personal data is produced, collected, shared, and used. Online privacy has become one of the most significant challenges for co-creating digital artefacts in a sustainable digital world. This paper presents the results of a representative study on online privacy conducted in Austria, which shows a growing need for personalized and human-centric sociotechnical solutions which empower humans to exercise their rights to online privacy, consenting and agency. We call such systems Personal Data Protection and Consenting Assistant Systems (PDPCAS). Using a human-centric perspective on privacy and consenting, which is inspired by recent advancements in cognitive sciences and sociology of science and technology, as well as the results of our representative study, combined with the results of a set of interdisciplinary expert interviews, we provide a reflection on PDPCASs, which mainly includes the functional and non-functional requirements of such systems. Based on the results of our studies, we reflect on the main challenges for the development and adaptation of PDPCASs. We argue that besides the absence of supporting automation standards, the lack of enforceability, and the technical complexities of developing human-centric PDPCASs, the user-acceptance and user experience design pose significant challenges to realizing these systems in practice. Finally, the paper provides a short reflection on the importance of human-centric PDPCASs for the co-creation of a sustainable digital economy.