A Human-centric Perspective on Digital Consenting: The Case of GAFAM

According to different legal frameworks such as the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an end-user's consent constitutes one of the well-known legal bases for personal data processing. However, research has indicated that the majority of end-users have difficulty in understanding what they are consenting to in the digital world. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that marginalized people are confronted with even more difficulties when dealing with their own digital privacy. In this research, we use an enactivist perspective from cognitive science to develop a basic human-centric framework for digital consenting. We argue that the action of consenting is a sociocognitive action and includes cognitive, collective, and contextual aspects. Based on the developed theoretical framework, we present our qualitative evaluation of the consent-obtaining mechanisms implemented and used by the five big tech companies, i.e. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM). The evaluation shows that these companies have failed in their efforts to empower end-users by considering the human-centric aspects of the action of consenting. We use this approach to argue that their consent-obtaining mechanisms violate principles of fairness, accountability and transparency. We then suggest that our approach may raise doubts about the lawfulness of the obtained consent—particularly considering the basic requirements of lawful consent within the legal framework of the GDPR

Personal photograpy & art : digital media practices exemplified by digital photography and art

Zusammenfassung in deutscher SpracheaPhotographie und die damit verbundenen Technologien haben seit ihrer Entwicklung im frühen 19. Jahrhundert signifikanten Einfluss auf die Gesellschaft. Die Einwirkung von Photographie erstreckt sich von kommerziellen Anwendungen bis zum Privatleben und verändert wie wir kommunizieren, uns selbst repräsentieren sowie die Art und Weise, in der wir uns mit Hilfe von Photographie in unserem sozialen Kontext künstlerisch ausdrücken. Wie frühere Studien gezeigt haben, erfüllt Privatphotographie vier unterschiedliche Funktionen: Aufbau und Erhalt sozialer Beziehungen, Bewahrung von Erinnerungen (von Einzelpersonen oder Gruppen), Selbstdarstellung und Selbstausdruck. Wiewohl den ersten drei Funktionen in diversen Studien bereits einige Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet wurde, sind Selbstausdruck und künstlerische Privatphotographie, sowie im Speziellen deren Praxis und Einfluss auf die Gesellschaft großteils unerforscht geblieben. Diese Diplomarbeit erforscht daher die Praxis von Privatphotographie im Zeitalter ubiquitärer Digitalphotographie anhand einer Reihe von qualitativen Interviews mit BenutzerInnen der Online-Community deviantART. Basierend auf den theoretischen Grundlagen der qualitativen Forschung wie sie Creswell, Hohl, Kvale und Brinkman beschreiben, unter Zuhilfenahme der qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse nach Mayring und der Narrativanalyse nach Labov und Waletzky, führen die Interviews zu einer dichten Beschreibung der digitalen Praxis der ProbandInnen im Hinblick auf Privatphotographie zum Zweck des künstlerischen Selbstausdruckes. Die Arbeit behandelt eine breite Vielfalt photographischer Praktiken und setzt diese in den Kontext zweier Theorien der Photographie basierend auf den Werken von Roland Barthes und Vile-m Flusser. Darüber hinaus beleuchtet sie die Zusammenhänge zwischen den Themenkomplexen Identität, sozialen Beziehungen und Interaktion, Familie, Privatsphäre und öffentlicher Anerkennung im Kontext von künstlerischem Handeln und Privatphotographie.Photography as a technology has had a profound impact on society since its conception in the early 19th century until today. Touching both the public and the private aspects of human life, its influence reaches from commercial applications to personal use and changed the way we communicate, represent and express ourselves as members of our social context and society as a whole. As identified by prior research, personal photography serves four distinct social uses: Creating and Maintaining Social Relationships, Personal and Group Memory, Self-Presentation and Self-Expression. While the first three have been explored scientifically to a great extent, Self-Expression in its practices and social impact has been largely neglected so far. This thesis focuses on exploring the use of Personal Photography in the age of ubiquitous digital photography technology through a series of qualitative interviews with users of the online art community deviantART. Drawing on the definitions of qualitative research as described by Creswell, Hohl, Kvale and Brinkman and the analytic approach outlined by Mayring as well as a supplementary narrative analysis based on the concepts of Labov and Waletzky, the interviews lead to what Geertz calls a thick description of digital media practices of individuals utilizing Personal Photography as a means of self-expression. The study explores the wide diversity of these practices and relates them to different theories of photography, namely those created by Roland Barthes and Vile-m Flusser. Furthermore, it uncovers issues of identity and the complex relationship between the need for it recognition on the one hand and the need for privacy on the other, as well as touching on the subjects of relationships, family and other social interactions through Personal Photography.10

Join the Park!: Exploring Opportunities to Lower the Participation Divide in Park Communities

The current work explores the participation divide that is oftentimes at play within local citizen communities. The studied case illustrates a common situation where the majority of local citizens does not participate in public space improvement and maintenance activities organised by local community activists. The presented research involved semi-structured interviews supported by interactive service design probes. It has led to two strategies for stimulating community participation, namely 1) increasing transparency around community activities, and 2) embedding community participation in citizens' daily social practices

Thinking outside the (tool) box: exploring empowerment through the design and use of toolkits

Toolkits enable people to create and design their own technologies, and just as many other Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tools they are now widely available and approachable. This development aligns well with recent HCI research agendas, which have emerged around the call for empowerment. The availability of toolkits should present a unique opportunity for realising the potentials of end-user empowerment in the sense of giving people and communities access to tools and approaches for shaping their own lives with their own designs. However, the question remains how toolkits should be designed to serve the diverse needs of different user groups for their respective purposes and practices. Furthermore, there is also value in learning from how users appropriate toolkits for their own (maybe unanticipated) purposes. In this workshop, we aim to identify different ways in which toolkits can empower people in diverse life situations. The workshop brings together researchers, designers, and practitioners with an interest in designing and using toolkits for and with people from diverse backgrounds, for different purposes, and in a variety of contexts. We see a particular potential in discussing how research could unpack toolkits as tools for empowerment and for engaging people in technology design

Technology at/of the border: a workshop about stories and experiences

In a time of increased (forced) migration, the borders of many countries are not only experienced physically. We are witnessing new ways in which borders are being created, re-created and evolved. In this workshop we are concerned about borders mediated by digital technologies. We aim to bring together researchers and local organisations working with migrants and refugees to investigate the interplay between borders and technology. We aim to explore how borders are defined within the digital age, how they are experienced, and discuss how technology is used to enforce, challenge and overcome borders

Into the mine: Wicked reflections on decolonial thinking and technologies

Our global livelihoods are intrinsically tied to mining. The technologies we use, as currently designed, are not possible without the minerals and metals that are an essential part of several of their components. As a result, HCI research and applications are tightly dependent on mining, including the negative environmental and social impacts resulting from it. This paper aims to describe and reflect on this problematic entanglement as a ”wicked cycle.” We present a dilemma faced by communities living near mining sites in the Amazon, which are affected by the ecological impacts of mining and rely on digital technologies made with such mines’ products, including telecommunication technologies, to effectively and successfully advocate for and realise their own local visions of development. We promote a discussion built on concepts from decolonial thinking and critical sustainability. With this paper, we want to create space and necessity to acknowledge our complicity as HCI researchers in this dilemma and propose a series of questions to reflect on our part in these specific, and other, wicked cycles

Mechanisms of Integral Membrane Protein Insertion and Folding

The biogenesis, folding, and structure of α-helical membrane proteins (MPs) are important to understand because they underlie virtually all physiological processes in cells including key metabolic pathways, such as the respiratory chain and the photosystems, and the transport of solutes and signals across membranes. Nearly all MPs require translocons—often referred to as protein-conducting channels—for proper insertion into their target membrane. Remarkable progress toward understanding the structure and functioning of translocons has been made during the past decade. Here we review and assess this progress critically. All available evidence indicates that MPs are equilibrium structures that achieve their final structural states by folding along thermodynamically controlled pathways. The main challenge for cells is the targeting and membrane insertion of highly hydrophobic amino acid sequences. Targeting and insertion are managed in cells principally by interactions between ribosomes and membrane-embedded translocons. Our review examines the biophysical and biological boundaries of membrane protein insertion and the folding of polytopic membrane proteins in vivo. A theme of the review is the under-appreciated role of basic thermodynamic principles in MP folding and assembly. Thermodynamics not only dictates the final folded structure, it is the driving force for the evolution of the ribosome-translocon system of assembly. We conclude the review with a perspective suggesting a new view of translocon-guided MP insertion