Simone van der Hof

The crisis of consent: how stronger legal protection may lead to weaker consent in data protection

In this article we examine the effectiveness of consent in data protection legislation. We argue that the current legal framework for consent, which has its basis in the idea of autonomous authorisation, does not work in practice. In practice the legal requirements for consent lead to ‘consent desensitisation’, undermining privacy protection and trust in data processing. In particular we argue that stricter legal requirements for giving and obtaining consent (explicit consent) as proposed in the European Data protection regulation will further weaken the effectiveness of the consent mechanism. Building on Miller and Wertheimer’s ‘Fair Transaction’ model of consent we will examine alternatives to explicit consent.

Privacy Expectations of Social Media Users: The Role of Informed Consent in Privacy Policies

Social media process (sometimes large amounts of) personal data of their users, usually on the basis of informed consent. In this article, a comparison is made between, on the one hand, existing practices of social media regarding informed consent for using personal data of users and, on the other hand, user expectations with regard to privacy and informed consent. The comparison is made on the basis of a set of criteria for informed consent distilled from an analytical bibliography. Next, the privacy policies of a selection of eight social network sites and user generated content sites are analyzed using this set of criteria for informed consent. User expectations regarding these criteria were derived from survey results of a large EU-wide online survey (N = 8,621, 26 countries) on the awareness, values, and attitudes of social media users regarding privacy. We find that not all privacy policy criteria are important to users, but most criteria that are important to users can be found in most privacy policies.

Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety

Ensuring online safety has become a topic on the regulatory agenda in many Western societies. However, regulating for online safety is far from easy, due to the wide variety of national and international, private and public actors and stakeholders that are involved. When regulating online risks for children it is important to strike the right balance between protection against harms on the one hand and safeguarding their fundamental freedoms and rights on the other. The authors in this book attempt to grapple with precisely this theme: striking the right balance between ensuring safety for children on the internet while at the same time enabling them to experiment, to learn, to enrich their lives, to acquire skills and to have fun using this global network. The authors come from various scientific disciplines, ranging from law to social science and from media studies to philosophy. This means that the book provides the reader with both empirical and theoretical/conceptual chapters and sheds a multi-disciplinary light on the complex topic of regulating online safety for children.

Development and validation of the Multidimensional Offline and Online Peer Victimization Scale

The MOOPV is a valid and reliable measure of offline and online peer victimization.MOOPV distinguishes indirect and direct forms of offline and online peer victimization.Offline and online peer victimization were related to psychosocial well-being.Boys reported more direct offline victimization than girls, no other gender differences. Peer victimization can seriously impair ones well-being. As youth spend more time on the Internet, a new form of peer victimization has emerged, namely, online peer victimization. To fully comprehend peer victimization among todays youth, there is a need for a psychometrically sound measure that can assess peer victimization occurring both offline and online. In addition, research has shown that it is also important to distinguish between direct and indirect peer victimization. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop and validate the Multidimensional Offline and Online Peer Victimization Scale (MOOPV). The MOOPV measures how often adolescents experience direct and indirect forms of offline and online peer victimization. The four-factor structure of the MOOPV was confirmed using exploratory (n=325) and confirmatory factor analyses (n=799) among adolescents aged 9-18years. As expected, higher scores on all subscales were related to lower levels of psychosocial wellbeing, i.e., less life satisfaction, more loneliness and less social self-esteem. In all, the 20-item MOOPV proved to be a valid, reliable and highly useful instrument. Importantly, because the MOOPV is not linked to specific technologies, it will remain viable even after new technologies for online communication become available.

On Technology Against Cyberbullying

Technology is one of the modalities to regulate anti-social online behavior such as cyberbullying. It is unknown what characteristics of effective technology against cyberbullying are and to what extent existing Internet safety technologies can be expected to protect against cyberbullying. This chapter addresses both these issues, by first proposing a set of desired characteristics from literature on cyberbullying and Internet safety technology and subsequently discussing the expected effectiveness of existing Internet safety technologies based on these characteristics. The results indicate that existing Internet safety technologies are not effective against cyberbullying, mainly because they have been designed for other online risks than cyberbullying. Another way technology can steer behavior is by providing social cues. Additionally, we propose the virtual empathic buddy, an application of this so-called persuasive technology, that provides emotional support and practical advice to victims of cyberbullying as an alternative to existing restrictive technology against cyberbullying.

No Child’s Play: Online Data Protection for Children

The vastly increased Internet usage by children has boosted attention for their online privacy, more particularly, the protection of their personal data. It is, therefore, not surprising that the European Commission has added provisions specifically focused on protecting children in the proposal for a general data protection regulation. This chapter aims to analyse these provisions and assess them in the broader scope of technological developments and the interest of the child. To this end, the chapter first describes the current legal framework for the protection of children’s online privacy and the concerns that are raised in this respect. Then it goes on to explore the changes intended to be brought on by the proposed regulation. The chapter wraps up with an assessment of these changes in light of technological complexities, privacy concerns and the interests of children.