Project on Nudging Privacy in the Digitalized World of Work

The Department of Information Systems at the University of Kassel is coordinating a project on nudging privacy in the digitalized world of work. The project, which will run for three years, is funded by the BMBF with approximately 1.2 million euros. The goal is to develop privacy nudging concepts that promote sensitive handling of private and company-related data.

Almost every decision we make in our everyday lives or in the course of our work activities requires us to deal with diverse, sometimes sensitive data. This applies both to a private online purchase and to the maintenance of corporate databases.

One approach that can be used to train employees more effectively in handling data is known as privacy nudging. This is a method that can be used to influence people's behavior without restricting their decision-making options. Here, nudges in digital work systems are to be designed in such a way that they induce individuals to change their behavior while complying with organizational, legal and ethical requirements. This serves to better design IT systems with regard to the privacy of employees and at the same time to promote the informational self-determination of users.

The University of Kassel, represented by the Department of Information Systems (Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister) and the Department of Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law (Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hornung), smarTransfer GmbH (Dr. Philipp Bitzer, Dr. René Wegener) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO and Future Work Lab (Sven Schuler) are working on the implementation.

"Handling personal data is becoming increasingly significant for both individuals and companies. Employees need more training in this area. The nudging concept offers a good, individual and modern approach to raise awareness among employees," says Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister, Head of the Department of Information Systems at the University of Kassel. Prof. Dr. Gerrit Hornung, Head of the Department of Public Law, IT Law and Environmental Law, adds: "Influencing behavior through nudges can definitely interfere with the self-determination of those affected. This is precisely why we want to define data protection and labor law framework conditions for their use in interdisciplinary work." "Legal permissibility, ethical defensibility and technical feasibility should be combined. Without one of these components, there can be no work organization design rules for the conception and use of nudging for production work," adds Sven Schuler, project manager and research associate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO.

Within the research project, privacy nudging concepts are being developed and piloted with the Future Work Lab in Stuttgart and the company smarTransfer GmbH, among others, with their freelancer technology Lyncronize. In the long term, it should be possible to offer these concepts as individual services to a broad market.

Further information:

www.nudger.de

www.inf.wirtschaft.uni-kassel.de

Contact:

Dr. Andreas Janson
University of Kassel
Department of Information Systems
Tel.: +49 561 804-6321
E-Mail: andreas.janson@uni-kassel.de

Prof. Dr. Jan Marco Leimeister
University of Kassel
Department of Information Systems
Tel.: +49 561 804-6064
E-Mail: leimeister@uni-kassel.de