Individuals’ experience of governmental data collection : A qualitative analysis of late millennial men in Sweden

The collection of personal data has increased and developed side-to-side with the digitalization of society. It has been embedded in digital technologies where the collection and handling of personal data have become a great interest for private and public actors. Previous quantitative studies show a widespread concern with data collection among individuals. Based on 16 semi-structured interviews, this study investigates individuals’ experiences with governmental data collection. The sample of this study consists of individuals who belong to the generation of late millennials. This study investigates how late millennials are experiencing data collection from domestic authorities using David Lyon’s theoretical framework of surveillance imaginaries and surveillance practices. Online privacy literacy is added as a third component to the framework which together with imaginaries and practices form how individuals experience data collection. The results show that the respondents’ imaginaries are built on compliance and trust with data collection from Swedish authorities. The respondents imagine this data collection as an exchange, as public good, as securitization and as harmless. The identified practices displayed how the abstract nature of data collection together with the trust for Swedish authorities created a kind of non-response towards data collection from Swedish authorities. The results also show how the imaginary of trust reduced the need for knowledge. The respondents lack an understanding of how data collection is performed, but it did not influence their imaginaries and practices. This study also concludes how trust for the surveillor leads to compliance with data collection for the surveilled. How perceived trust for the surveillor can reduce an individual’s privacy concerns which influence surveillance imaginaries and practices. This study thus demonstrates the interplay between imaginaries, practices and knowledge in the shaping of individual experience of data collection from domestic authorities