2024-09-04 | The Materiality of Privacy, TU Delft

Interactions that take place in digital, online environments are naturally virtual: they lack a tactile and physical dimension. When we refer to interactions between users from one side, and service providers on the other side, there is a flow of personal information from users to providers. Users can be aware of this flow (e.g., when they fill in an online form with their personal information) or not (e.g., when personal data are surreptitiously captured through cookies and similar tools). In both cases, however, the information flow is ontologically deprived of materiality.

In this project, you will work on a speculative design tool that adds materiality to surveillance and data capture, with reference to research in the field of speculative and social design. You will develop a digital app that warns users, through random and uncontrollable audio messages, that their data are captured and used by service providers—that is, that surveillance is taking place. Examples of audio messages: “LinkedIn/X/Meta/Google is using your personal data to train their AI machines’’; “Pinterest is listening to your conversation to sell you stuff”; “Your data have been hacked and are on sale in the dark web now”.

With this project you do research through design, but also politics through design.