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Personal Data: Thinking Inside the Box

Amir Chaudhry, Jon Crowcroft, Heidi Howard, Anil Madhavapeddy, Richard Mortier, Hamed Haddadi and Derek McAuley.

Journal paper in Aarhus Series on Human Centered Computing (vol 1 issue 1).

URL (tidsskrift.dk)   DOI   BIB   PDFpdf

We are in a ‘personal data gold rush’ driven by advertising being the primary revenue source for most online companies. These companies accumulate extensive personal data about individuals with minimal concern for us, the subjects of this process. This can cause many harms: privacy infringement, personal and professional embarrassment, restricted access to labour markets, restricted access to highest value pricing, and many others. There is a critical need to provide technologies that enable alternative practices, so that individuals can par- ticipate in the collection, management and consumption of their personal data. In this paper we discuss the Databox, a personal networked device (and associated services) that col- lates and mediates access to personal data, allowing us to re- cover control of our online lives. We hope the Databox is a first step to re-balancing power between us, the data subjects, and the corporations that collect and use our data.

# 1st Oct 2015   iconpapers databox journal privacy security selfhosting

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Older versions

There are earlier revisions of this paper available below for historical reasons. Please cite the latest version of the paper above instead of these.


This is v1 of the publication from Jan 2015.

Personal Data: Thinking Inside the Box

Hamed Haddadi, Heidi Howard, Amir Chaudhry, Jon Crowcroft, Anil Madhavapeddy and Richard Mortier.

Working paper at arXiv.

URL (arxiv.org)   DOI

# 1st Jan 2015   preprint