Questão 16 - CESGRANRIO 2014

Do young people care about privacy?

 

  We seem to be moving closer to a world where

every aspect of our lives is recorded, whether we like

it or not. And once our data is shared on the internet,

we lose control over it…

  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks the age

of privacy is over…but a team of Italian researchers is

not so sure about that…They’re working on a mobile

application that will allow users to regain control of

their personal data.

  Mattia Pasolli, Application Developer at the

project, known as the ‘Mobile Territorial Laboratory’

(MTL), reports that “All the people who don’t use

Facebook because of privacy issues might use it,

because they will know they have a sort of firewall that

precisely tells them what information is being shared

with external services.”

  The application is being tested with 80 families in

the Northern Italian city of Trento. Every family has a

smartphone that collects data about their lives.

  Fabrizio Antonelli, Director of the Mobile

Territorial Laboratory, explains that “The instrument

we used is called personal data store. It represents

a sort of security box for data, where we keep all the

information we collect about the person. Here, each

person can see the life cycle of his or her own data,

and see who has used that data, when, and for what

purpose.”

  The research has been developed through the

principle of “participatory design”. The application

is developed through the participation of the 80

families taking part. It’s a real community and they

knew each other before the research.

  Community Manager of MTL Erica Paris says

it could be a learning experience for users. “People

can learn a lot from this initiative, because through

this project they realise the amount of data that is

collected about them, including data from applications

other than ours. It’s something that they did not know

before”.

  Mattia Pasolli says Europe has a long way to

go to emulate America. “In the United States, there

are cultural factors that facilitate the creation of very

innovative small start-ups. But in Europe the mentality

of ‘trial, failure and trying again’ is not still totally

accepted or part of our culture”.

  One of the goals of the project is to improve

people’s quality of life through information and

communication technologies. The researchers hope

to anticipate the future trends in society.

 

Available at: <http://www.euronews.com/2013/06/03/do-young-people-care-about-privacy/> Retrieved on: Sept. 7th, 2013. Adapted. 

In Text II, one notices that Mattia Passoli