Keep System Status Visible: Impact of Notifications on the Perception of Personal Data Transparency

Abstract

Personal Data Transparency (PDT) requires that companies provide information for subjects about activities performed in their personal data such as collecting, processing, disseminating and sharing. Recent regulations on personal data have addressed the improvement of subjects’ capability in giving consent to controllers/processors, ensuring that data collection and usage policies are presented to the subject in an intelligible and easily accessible form, using clear and plain language. However, the objective of ensuring that people have more control over their personal data presumes that they are conscious on the value of their personal data, understand the concept of privacy, and are aware of risks, consequences and safeguards concerned and their rights in relation to the processing of personal data. This conscience should be complete in the moment of consent. Wisely, regulators have been cautious and included the right to withdraw the consent and the right of having personal data “forgotten”. However, a person’s conscience of risks comes with experience brought by the exposition to the facts, whether good or adverse, that happen after consent is given. Users frequently accept all terms without fully agreeing with them because they are motivated to access a service or product. In this paper, we report and discuss the results of an experiment showing that instantaneous notification of data collection to smartphone users’ increases significantly their awareness of transparency. Based on this discussion, we advocate that feedback should be enforced in the transparency regulations.