OSD2F / Digital Data Donation Infrastructure (D3I)
OSD2F is a NWO PDI-SSH funded project to create digital infrastructure for data donation. See also our recent CCR article: preprint.
Summary
Human behavior can be studied in an unprecedented level of detail by using digital trace data left by digital platform usage. The Digital Data Donation Infrastructure (D3I) will enable individuals to donate their digital trace data to academic research in a secure, transparent and privacy-protecting manner. It is based on individualsā rights to download and port their data from any organization which stores user data, as per the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR Article 15). This unlocks a treasure trove for research in the Social Sciences and the Humanities.
D3I turns the user-platform-researcher relationship around: Instead of researchers being dependent on platforms to study individuals, it enables researchers to work directly with individuals to study both individualsā own behavior and the platforms themselves. This allows researchers to collect critical data to study the causes, contents and consequences of (online) communication, behavior and cultural production and consumption within platforms.
Built in a flexible and extensible manner, the infrastructure will cover the most popular online (Facebook and Google, and their properties), entertainment (Netflix and Spotify) platforms, and work (Uber) platforms. Importantly, D3I provides the legal and methodological framework necessary to help accelerate and expand critical SSH research across university and disciplinary boundaries.
Team
Some of the team members: