ELIMIWASTE ENTERS THE DATA GAME
2020 ∙ TU/e Industrial Design ∙ Design Research ∙ Speculative design ∙ Online privacy
2020 ∙ TU/e Industrial Design ∙ Design Research ∙ Speculative design ∙ Online privacy
Imagine this: you’re browsing the web looking for a birthday present for your friend and you stumble upon a website with the perfect gift. A cookie notification pops up. What do you do? There is no reject-all button and you’re kind of in a hurry. You quickly decide to accept and buy the present. Sounds familiar?
In this project I researched online privacy. Using speculative design, I set out the answer the question: When presented with two scenarios in which similar data is collected both digitally and in a tangible manner, are people consistent in their privacy preferences?
The speculative design I created is a fictional waste disposal company called ElimiWaste. This company gathers personal information from people’s waste. By selling this data, they can make waste collection and disposal free for everyone. I presented this design fiction in three videos, two videos were used in an online survey. The last one was posted on social media to engage people in a discussion in the comment section to gather qualitative responses. The choice to present the speculative design online was made because it well fit the topic and because of Covid restrictions at the time.
ELIMIWASTE PROMO
The first video shown in the survey is a promotional video about the company. This video is ‘made’ by ElimiWaste to introduce their service to all Dutch citizens. The video contains animations and stock videos narrated with a voice over.
NEWS ITEM PROTEST
Het Verhaal Regionaal (the regional story), a local news station, presents the second video in which they cover a protest that took place outside ElimiWaste headquarters. In this news item a reporter interviews the initiator of the protest, Talitha Hoogpand. Talitha explains how ElimiWaste violates their right to privacy.
TECH TODAY VIDEO
The last video is made by Tech Today, a YouTube channel that discusses the latest news in tech. The presenter in the video starts by introducing ElimiWaste as the Dutch waste disposal company that has been making headlines worldwide. This is followed by a shortened version of the promo video and an interview with the organiser of the protests. The video is concluded by the presenter asking the viewer how they feel about this company.
