Monitoring the Data Ecosystem

University of Michigan Law School

Formative Research

Our goal for the semester was to find a problem that resonated with our daily experiences within the realm of identity theft and privacy. The main type of formative research we engaged with were informational interviews with experts within the realm of privacy and consumer trade. We utilized a Process Map curated and presented by the Center of Socially Engaged Design to walk ourselves through finding a problem and formulating solutions collaboratively and online. We identified various stakeholders through our Ecosystem Mapping process to understand who are key players in various topics within identity theft.

Our interview process and interviewees

We used several channels to obtain individuals who were experts in topics such as data aggregation, identity theft within the public markets, business models and privacy implementation, and so on.

We were able to complete nine official interviews which included:

1. Professors of Technology, IT, Information Ethics, and Security

2. Privacy, Security, and Data Innovation Law Firm members

3. Members of the US Department of Defense

One theme that many of our interviewees and conversations alluded to was the issue of data aggregation and the limited knowledge that consumers have of it.

Final Topic

The topic we decided to focus our efforts on is data aggregation. Our problem statement to help guide our design process was:

How might we discourage or minimize major public corporations in the retail sector from dealing with third party data aggregators?

Literature Review

In conjunction with the information gathered on data aggregation through our interviews, we also delved into a detailed literature review of what data aggregation is, what it entails and how it affects consumers and their privacy. You may find a detailed version of our research findings within our report.

Prototyping

Our prototyping process included using the “Fake Door” method; meaning that we wanted to create a fake entry to our product before it is built and usable. The advantage for using this type of prototyping methodology is that it allows us to pick and try various sources that already exist that we would like strike inspiration from to build out our product to help regulate data aggregation.

Prototype

Solution Design

From our brainstorming, we revisited two themes that we wanted to incorporate into our solution’s design that would really give our solution its uniqueness and competitive edge:

1. Business shaming

2. Public Information

Examples from our MURAL brainstorming board

Our Solution: The CPR Dashboard

Government Facing Dashboard

Consumer Facing Dashboard

Implementation and Impact

We hope that through our proposed design solution, we will give power back to the consumer by giving them an easy to interpret and clear visualization for data aggregation and what it means in terms of their privacy. Including a quick link to retailer opt-out pages will allow consumers the freedom to make their own decisions once they understand how the data collection could affect them. To ideally implement this solution we suggest working through agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to work with us on our two-step implementation plan”

1. Creating a 10-Q report requiring large retailers to report their data aggregation information as it pertains to their financial dealings. It would be completed every fiscal year in the first three quarters.

2. Designing the dashboard alongside government officials and creating a plan to allocate responsibilities on which department will be in charge of maintaining and updating the dashboard as new information arrives.

Full details about our research, solution design, and implementation plan can be fully viewed in our detailed report here.