How and why do people justify mass surveillance through technology?
At the international conference Wirtschaftsinformatik 2019 in Siegen a study was presented, in which also the team of the Schöller Endowed Chair was involved, which investigates the question, why humans justify mass surveillance by technologies.
Even if mass surveillance leads to a loss of privacy and other negative consequences for the individual, a majority justifies it. Starting from the theory of system justification, Jakob Wirth, Christian Maier (both University of Bamberg) and Sven Laumer consider mass surveillance a political agreement. Five factors have been identified that potentially influence the individual’s justification for mass surveillance, including perceived data protection control or perceived security. With the results, the authors contribute to privacy research by pointing out that individuals do not necessarily consider mass surveillance to be bad, and by discussing implications how these perceptions can be influenced.
The team of the Schöller Endowed Chair also contributed to the success of the conference. Prof. Laumer was jointly responsible for the track “Digital Work – Social, mobile, smart”. Together with Christian Maier (Bamberg), Matthias Trier (Paderborn) and Alexander Richter (Copenhagen) he supervised the submissions of the conference, which dealt with questions of the “future of work”.
Further information about WI 2019 can be found on the conference website.