In the privacy arena, actors from academia, policy, law, tech, journalism, and civil society influence debates, policies, and practices. The size and diversity of sectors, regional, legal, and cultural contexts in the privacy arena presents a challenge for systematically synthesizing its members' conversations and opinions.
We follow and analyze developments in privacy actors’ attitudes, expectations, and concerns around current and emerging issues in digital privacy over time through a cross-national, cross-sectoral survey of influential voices and experts in privacy, generating quantitative signals on privacy perceptions.
Our goal is to help companies and policymakers internationally learn more about current and future digital privacy concerns and how they can best be addressed, either by designing technology to account for concerns or by mandating safeguards in legislation.
We have developed a novel, tiered and targeted sampling and recruiting approach: Combining systematic canvassing of privacy experts with Twitter-based social network analysis and respondent-driven sampling techniques, we identify experts and influential voices in privacy debates within and across sectors and transatlantic jurisdictions.
We conduct qualitative interviews and discourse analysis to map out the network of privacy actors and to understand how debates among them unfold, and the topics covered in these debates. Data sources are both written texts, such as scientific journal and conference papers, legislative proposals and hearings, NGO and think tank papers, or media articles, as well as Twitter data.
The TAPP Panel questionnaire is informed by the qualitative interviews and discourse analysis. Its core part contains questions about perceptions of current and future topics in digital privacy, questions about regulatory aspects, as well as evaluations of organizations’ and government regulations’ performance in protecting digital privacy. This core part forms the basis for an ongoing quantitative signal on the state of privacy. A modular part picks up sentiments about current events. Panel participants are invited to complete the 5-minute survey two to three times a year.
“It is important for us in the privacy community to understand how different voices and stakeholders influence the broader discourse on privacy, and this project helps us think about the diversity of research, advocacy, and regulatory agendas across our community”
“I’m really glad that you’re doing this work — this kind of insight is sorely needed in the privacy space and I’m looking forward to reading the results.”
“This is brilliant — looking forward to hear findings from this survey.”
“I appreciated that the survey wasn’t time consuming to fill out and that the questions were clear. I’d be really interested in understanding the reasons for / drivers of people’s perceptions and also in comparing responses across regions.”
“I enjoyed thinking about these questions, thanks.”
“You all do a great survey design, and I wish you good luck.”
“Interesting survey – the longitudinal aspect is very valuable. Thank you for doing the good work.”
“It is great that someone looks at privacy issues from a scientific point of view.”
We consider you to be an influential voice in debates and conversations about privacy. Your thoughts and outlook on current and emerging digital privacy issues will help us identify trends that can be used to inform policy and technological design.
Data collected through the TAPP panel survey is protected in line with EU GDPR. Your responses will be analyzed in a confidential and aggregated manner and only for the purpose of this project. In line with the open science movement, we will make selected survey data available for research purposes. No identifying information will be contained in this dataset.
Only the researchers affiliated with the project will have access to your responses to a qualitative interview.
Data published in reports will be aggregated and will not individually identify you or your responses. If you are taking part in a qualitative interview or follow-up in-depth survey, you will have the choice not to be quoted at all, to be quoted anonymously, or to have quotations attributed to you.
You are welcome to share this project and its results with your network. If you know someone who you think should be part of the panel, please contact us or encourage them to reach out at info@privacyperceptions.org. If you are interested in taking part in an in-depth interview, please reach out to info@privacyperceptions.org.
Don’t hesitate to contact our team at info@privacyperceptions.org with any questions.
TAPP is supported by research grants from Meta, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Volkswagen Foundation. Research is being conducted entirely independently of any funding sources. An independent scientific advisory board provides guidance and strategic input to the TAPP research team.
