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ABOUT
Tech giants have repeatedly violated users' trust by purposefully collecting their personal data and using it to manipulate their behaviours. As such, there is a need to educate the wider public about online vulnerability, as well as provide ways for them to protect and take back control of their personal data.
Consensual Doxxing is a discursive design project aimed at raising awareness around data privacy issues as a result of lacking regulations and the widespread dangers of consumers’ personal data being traded in an increasingly digital world.
It features a microsite providing a voyeuristic perspective on personal data by analysing the data of a real-life individual known as X, while also examining the dangers of being unsuspecting and vulnerable online.
Additionally, Privacy For The Private Person is a guidebook comprising advice from various data privacy critics aimed at educating readers in ways to protect their online privacy. It is designed to be printable at home and available online.
In an era of hyperconnectivity, our personal data is collected, manipulated and traded for financial gain by unknown entities without restriction, recourse or repercussion.
To highlight this issue and educate the wider public on the dangers of online vulnerability, the approach was to make intangible data into a tangible experience, by allowing the audience to feel what it might be like for someone’s online activity to be collected and analysed by unknown entities to form a speculative profile of them. Through this utilisation of this person’s personal data, a caricature of what is being done to consumers is presented to and experienced by the audience.
Subsequently, the project also dives deeper into the harmful consequences that result from allowing speculative inferences about consumers to roam freely online, and presents all the collected data for the audience to filter through and experience what data brokers are doing with their information.
As one of the root causes of the issue lies with the lack of transparency, all imagery used was lifted directly from screen recordings of the subject’s phone and laptop online activities in order to reflect the need for things to be presented “as they are”.
They are then treated through the lens of machines, by having a bitmap effect applied, as well as a “glitching” or “sweeping” effect that emphasises the loss of our identities to what is being perceived by these entities. Lastly, the images are further manipulated into collages to mimic the loose perceptions that data brokers have of their subjects, to visually warn the audience of the mistruth presented before them.
The overall dark visual tone seeks to jolt readers to the urgency of the message, with the dominant colour red used not only as a symbol of danger/threat, but also to guide readers to areas that require their attention. Additionally, the constant trail of red attached to mouse movement is intentional to make readers more aware of their online movement, where every move taken can’t be erased and is permanently etched into their online experience.
To further enhance the audience’s understanding of the issue and educate them on various ways to protect their online privacy, a guidebook featuring a collection of advice from data privacy critics was created for those concerned, and is designed to be printable at home and available online.
To ensure that the typical person would be able to assemble a book themselves, the book was designed to be comfortably hand-held, and staple-bound as it is a binding that could be easily achieved at home, with a purposely coloured untrimmed fore-edge to retain the visual theme of the book while avoiding the hassle of having to trim off edges.
