Transparency and User Control

About the Project

"Transparency” is a core component of addressing the challenges of the modern information economy. Transparency has always been an essential element of accountability and has been implemented, mainly, through traditional privacy policies. Such privacy policies and notices will continue to be helpful to individuals in certain contexts. However, in the modern information age, new uses of information will always outstrip the ability of individuals to understand fully how and by whom their information is being used. This reality requires a new application of transparency that extends beyond its traditional function of providing legal notice of specific uses.

A new transparency will have to focus on the bigger picture and effectively explain the general value exchange between individuals who provide their data and the organizations that use their data. It will have to explain the value of unexpected, out-of-context and non-obvious future beneficial uses of information. It will also have to explain how the organization will protect individuals against any potential risks associated with such uses and give them the confidence that they can go about their lives in our digital society without daily decisions about the potential uses of their personal information.
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In an era when there will be less opportunity for consent and individual control and more reliance on organizations to protect the individual, new transparency is essential for creating the public trust that will enable this shift. As part of CIPL’s work on big data issues, CIPL promotes this new transparency as well as the necessary user controls and interfaces that will enable it through articles, white papers and its workshops.

Project Workshops
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