Enhancing citizen participation through data subject right delegation

Abstract

Data subject rights (DSRs) such as the right of access and the right to data portability can provide citizens with information about how their data are used in society. Researchers in academia and civil society alike have used such rights to investigate and improve transparency in democratic institutions. Researching with DSRs, however, is quite hard to conduct, requires some legal and technical knowledge, and suffers scalability limitations. One method to improve this is through delegation, where data subjects allow researchers to take the lead in exercising DSRs on their behalf. In this paper we present initial results from a user study investigating the acceptability of delegation of DSRs. We find that 86.67% of our 55 participants are willing to delegate their DSRs, and a cross three hypothetical research scenarios, the most acceptable delegate is a researcher conducting studies. Our findings can guide researchers in developing platforms that improve citizen participation in digital democracy studies that employ DSRs as a data collection tool.