The
Public and The Private in Doing Citizen Sciences – How do Citizen Scientists
Perceive Their Privacy When They Communicate Online?
Privacy
is usually understood as a fixed concept (e.g. as seen in information system
design and in policy documents). To challenge this linear, one-dimensional
view, some scholarly work has proposed a contextual approach to privacy, taking
into account different perceptions that individuals, groups and/or institutions
have on privacy and different strategies developed for managing it (Nissenbaum
2004, Fieschi 2007, Livingstone 2008, Robards 2010, Wessels 2012).
Based
on this body of work that establishes a need for contextualising the concept of
privacy, I'd like to open up the discussion on data and privacy by exploring
the intersectionality of different moralities, interests, practices, and
perceptions of privacy.
The
fuzzy boundary between the public and the private has been discussed in
relation to digital communication. Scholarly attempt to problematise this
dualism of the public / private can be illustrated by Sheller
and Urry (2003), where they argue that the perception of what is public and
what is private needs to be reconceptualised:
‘these notions of the public rest on a separate basis and
presuppose a particular contrasting ‘private’... we criticize such static
conceptions and emphasize the increasing fluidity in terms of where moments of
publicity and privacy occur’ (107-08).
I would
like to extend this argument to ponder different public and private spaces. I
will draw on my work on free/open source software and citizen science communities, to see how
open / citizen scientists perceive public and private spaces, and manage their
privacy, in relation to their practices of sharing and crowdsourcing collective
intelligence.
The
words 'open' and 'citizen' suggest a certain level of 'public', yet the
practices of data collection, data sharing and data manipulation require
embodied actions that may involve contributions of actors' labour, emotions,
and bodily performance. Therefore, there is a division between 'public' and
'private' in citizen science. However, how does one negotiate this public /
private boundary? How much of the private body or emotions should one share or
contribute to the 'public' domain? If sharing the data and information would
reveal one's identity, whereabouts, locations in the public domain, would this
person still be motivated to share the data? What is a justifiable cause (e.g.,
solving a scientific problem) to persuade a citizen scientist to 'surrender'
his / her privacy (or is there a privacy issue here?)?
Examining
the intersection of the public and the private allows us to conceptualise the
engagement in citizen science as new ways of expressing one's identity and
creativity (which groups citizen scientists belong, what goals they would like
to achieve in their life (self-actualisation in light of Maslow's hierarchy of
needs), what values they hold dearly). It also allows the researcher to
critically examine the citizen science phenomenon by problematising the overtly
positive perspective on 'citizen science' constructed in the public discourse,
and by contextualising issues around 'public participation' and 'individual
motivations'.
Different
perceptions of public / private will be analysed through narrative analysis of
communications on different online citizen science communities. Specifically, I
will question different levels of publicity and privacy, citizen science as a
cause for sacrificing privacy, perceptions of public / private spaces – would
sharing personal information and emotions on a closed mailing list for amateurs
scientists considered as private (or 'semi-public')? Would a single datum that
inscribes the collector's location and whereabouts at certain time be considered
as private once being integrated into an aggregated large dataset? Would a
digital portal with an authentication mechanism built in be deemed as public?
What strategies have been developed and/or adopted to manage privacy in
different public and private spaces? What is the range of information that one
shares and what not (e.g., personal experiences, life stories, emotions, data,
objects)? How would one resist or express themselves through exploring and
negotiating the public / private in the field of citizen science?
I'd
love to ponder these questions together with fellow participants at the seminar
'Debating the Technical and Ethical Limits of Secrecy and Privacy' for they
would be useful for designing citizen science information systems in the future.
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