Researching the transparency of personal data sharing: designing a concert receipt

The project’s overarching aim was to increase people’s awareness, trust and control over the data that they share with organisations and explore how organisations can give more control over the data individuals share when conducting personal data transactions. We focused on personal data sharing and trust using user experience (UX) design and prototyping methodology. The motivation of this project was to help citizens understand why we capture their personal data, how it benefits them, and evaluate the idea of a consent receipt. A consent receipt being a receipt that tracks a user’s consent by making a record of it, just like a regular receipt is used to track purchasing of products. Consent receipts allow: users to understand the data their share, where it goes, who has it and why users and organisations to keep a proof of consent and enable consistent consent practices organisations to simplify terms and conditions. Following this, we wanted to leverage the consent receipt standard to design and take to market a consumer-centric consent process, ultimately increasing consumers’ trust in organisations. We implemented several research methods, from mapping visitors’ different experiences within the Digital Catapult Centre, to exploratory interviews with visitors to investigate what they value in terms of data capture. This work contributed to the design of a meaningful consent receipt – from assessing its value in creating transparency and trust in different contexts, to understanding consumers’ personal data sharing patterns, and finally by informing future research