Do you trust the Government with your data?

This is one of the questions that PRIVATT (Assessing Irish attitudes to privacy in times of COVID-19) is asking, in a survey you may complete anonymously – in no way compromising your personal data!

An initial pilot study indicated that, when it comes to helping the nation survive Covid-19, Irish people are inclined to prioritise sharing potentially useful personal information over any privacy concerns they normally have.

Dr Irina Tal, the lead researcher noted:

“The pilot study showed people more willing to share their personal data in the interest of saving lives – rising from 12% pre-pandemic to 63% now. This extended study at national level aims to see if this attitude is representative for the Irish public in general.”

You have until December 13th to express your opinions.

Dr Tal, a lecturer at DCU, leads an interdisciplinary team encompassing data analytics, sentiment analysis, machine learning, communications, security, privacy and law. Experts collaborating on this project are drawn from Dublin City University, Trinity College Dublin, Middlesex University London and National College of Ireland.

Dr Evgeniia Jayasekera, who lectures in NCI and counts data integrity and anonymisation among her areas of expertise, worked on building the questionnaire you will complete and will be involved in analysing results. She explains:

“If we can understand attitudes to data and privacy, and particularly how those attitudes have been influenced during this pandemic, we can refine technology to most securely serve the Irish public, while eliciting the essential information Government and other key stakeholders need in a time of national crisis.”

Hosted by research centres, Lero and ADAPT, PRIVATT has a stakeholder forum that consists of representatives of Health Service Executive (HSE), Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), Microsoft Ireland, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi), Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ericsson, International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), Data Protection Commission of Ireland, Facebook, Digital Rights Ireland. This project is supported by Science Foundation Ireland.

This survey takes about 10 minutes to complete and will help in the design of future data collection systems, better preparing for those times when the country must come together to face a challenge that requires a national response.