Who Cares? Young Europeans’ attitudes towards the disclosure of personal identity data

In policy circles, there is increasing attention to the privacy and safety of young people\u27s personal identity data. Identity disclosure seems to be an integral part of young people\u27s lifestyles. Also, there is mixed evidence on the different attitudes regarding disclosure between young adults and more mature cohorts. The present research examines peoples’ practices in relation to various services (e.g. social networking, health). It gauges opinions, thoughts and motivations towards personal identity data management and covers policy preferences in relation to the protection of identity data. The study was conducted in seven EU Member States, covering four regional groups where attitudes to disclosure have been shown to differ. Two focus groups were run in each country; one with young people aged 15 to 25, the other involving adults (25 to 70 years old). Analysis is based on two complementary qualitative techniques, using textual analysis software. Content analysis was used to identify the main topics emerging from the groups’ interactions, while a ‘discriminate’ analysis was performed to obtain a deeper insight into discourses’ similarities and differences in relation to specific variables such as age and regions/countries. While this research does not aim to provide a comprehensive view of Europeans\u27 perceptions, it highlights significant differences, particularly between young people and adults and between the different countries (cultural differences). This study consequently has significant scientific and policy implications. The results will help shape a final questionnaire for a EU27 survey on the same subject. This work will help the European Commission direct the Information Society agenda in the years to come

One moment, please: can the speed and quality of political contact affect democratic health

Contact between politicians and their constituents is the cornerstone of democracies globally but an area of scholarship that remains relatively underdeveloped. Political contact can help convey authority, provide legitimacy and facilitate governance. This article goes beyond the assumption that representatives need to communicate more with the public and suggests, instead, that the quality of contact matters. Focusing on four processes by which citizens can contact their representatives (face-to-face, by letter, email or social media), we employ an experimental vignette methodology to test whether the character and timeliness of politicians’ responses to citizen communication affects two indicators of democratic health: (a) the latter’s satisfaction with political contact and (b) their likelihood to re-contact representatives. Our findings provide evidence that personalised communication and to a smaller extent, speed of response, can influence citizen satisfaction and their likelihood of re-engagement. This suggests politicians can improve these indicators of democratic health by adjusting the style of political contact and communication

New Media and Fat Democracy: The Paradox of Online Participation

This piece speculates on the internet’s wider influences on the shape of institutional politics in representative ‘actually existing democracies’. Findings, based on 100 semi-structured interviews with political actors (politicians, journalists and officials) operating around the UK Parliament, suggest two contrasting trends. On the one hand, more political actors at the immediate edges of the UK institutional political process are being further engaged in a sort of centrifugal movement going outwards from the centre. At the same time, the space between this extended political centre and its public periphery is increasing. This fatter, democratic elitist shift in UK politics may be interpreted as ‘new’ and ICT-driven. It might equally be argued that new media is exacerbating pre-existing political party and media trends in mature democracies which fail to engage ordinary citizens

Children’s rights online: challenges, dilemmas and emerging directions

In debates over internet governance, the interests of children figure unevenly, and only partial progress has been made in supporting children’s rights online globally. This chapter examines how the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is helpful in mapping children’s rights to provision, protection and participation as they apply online as well as offline. However, challenges remain. First, opportunities and risks are positively linked, policy approaches are needed to resolve the potential conflict between protection on the one hand, and provision and participation on the other. Second, while parents may be relied on to some degree to balance their child’s rights and needs, the evidence suggests that a minority of parents are ill-equipped to manage this. Third, resolution is needed regarding the responsibility for implementing digital rights, since many governments prefer self-regulation in relation to internet governance. The chapter concludes by calling for a global governance body charged with ensuring the delivery of children’s rights

Privacy by design: Does it matter for social networks?

Privacy is an important component of freedom and plays a key role in protecting fundamental human rights. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that without appropriate levels of privacy, a person’s rights are diminished. Users want to protect their privacy - particularly in “privacy invasive” areas such as social networks. However, Social Network users seldom know how to protect their own privacy through online mechanisms. What is required is an emerging concept that provides users legitimate control over their own personal information, whilst preserving and maintaining the advantages of engaging with online services such as Social Networks. This paper reviews “Privacy by Design (PbD)” and shows how it applies to diverse privacy areas. Such an approach will move towards mitigating many of the privacy issues in online information systems and can be a potential pathway for protecting users’ personal information. The research has also posed many questions in need of further investigation for different open source distributed Social Networks. Findings from this research will lead to a novel distributed architecture that provides more transparent and accountable privacy for the users of online information systems