Towards Technology-Based Informational Self-Determination in the Workplace While Respecting Employees' Privacy Perceptions and Mental Models

Doctoral project at a glance

The ongoing digitalisation and introduction of new information systems in everyday working life means that ever larger amounts of personal data of employees are processed by their employers. This development is particularly problematic with regard to employee data protection when employees have neither sufficient knowledge nor control over the processing and thus the right to informational self-determination as a fundamental element of human dignity is threatened. To compensate for the lack of knowledge and skills in exercising the right to privacy at the workplace, Dokorand Jan Tolsdorf is designing and testing an assistance system in the form of a "privacy dashboard" for everyday work. For its prototypical implementation, design guidelines are to be derived from the mental models and privacy perceptions of employees, with the help of which data processing and data flows in the work environment can be prepared in an understandable way, sensitised to possible infringements of privacy and options for intervention can be shown, so that employees become capable of acting.

Doctoral candidate

Supervising professor

Project Description

The ongoing digitalisation and introduction of new information systems in everyday working life means that ever larger amounts of personal data of employees are processed by their employers. This development is particularly problematic with regard to employee data protection when employees have neither sufficient knowledge nor control over the processing and thus the right to informational self-determination as a fundamental element of human dignity is threatened. To compensate for the lack of knowledge and skills in exercising the right to privacy at the workplace, Dokorand Jan Tolsdorf is designing and testing an assistance system in the form of a "privacy dashboard" for everyday work. For its prototypical implementation, design guidelines are to be derived from the mental models and privacy perceptions of employees, with the help of which data processing and data flows in the work environment can be prepared in an understandable way, sensitised to possible infringements of privacy and options for intervention can be shown, so that employees become capable of acting.