Farmville for personal data awareness: Turning data marketplaces into a game

I think one of the best ways to create an engaging experience is trough games or a gamified interaction system. Wolfie Christl, a speaker at TedxVienna is likely to agree with me. By doing research on personal data business models Christl became creeped out about how much data is collected and then sold. With Big Data in mind, this is one of the main privacy concerns regarding big data: who is collecting my data, at what scale and what the hell are they doing with my data. Well, when it comes to a data brokers like Acxiom they sell you data. Christl first turns to the quantified self movement as the latest burst of personal data. What if your insurance company learns that you never complete a single target in RunKeeper? What if your insurance company has access to data that tells them about your weight? Apps are collecting these types of data as we speak (or blog, in this case) and when data is collected, data is sold. So Christl is creating a Facebook game called Data Dealer to let people see for themselves how data brokers work, what a data marketplaces looks like and what kind of data sets companies can buy. I think these kind of ideas and projects are key to creating privacy and personal data awareness. Check out his talk from Tedx and share your ideas on this ‘Farmville for personal data awareness’.