DESIGN RESEARCH ︎ SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ︎ NARRATIVE DESIGN ︎ CRITICAL DESIGN ︎ VISUAL COMMUNICATION ︎ DESIGN RESEARCH ︎ SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ︎ NARRATIVE DESIGN ︎ CRITICAL DESIGN ︎ VISUAL COMMUNICATION ︎ DESIGN RESEARCH ︎ SOCIAL EXPERIMENT ︎ NARRATIVE DESIGN ︎ CRITICAL DESIGN ︎ VISUAL COMMUNICATION ︎
‘Data Hawker’
The project aims to understand common perceptions of data privacy through a guerilla experiment & nudges its participants to rethink their actions.
/March 2018
/National Institute of Design, AHD
/Tanishka Kachru
Case Study ︎
7 min read
Aadhaar, the Unique Identification System based on biometric data, has been heavily criticised by activists and officials alike. The major concern with Aadhar for activists is the ease with which its privacy can be breached and data, harvested.
This social experiment aims to bring to light the relationship ordinary citizen have with their personal information and data. Through this performance we try to create nudges to steer behaviour among citizens about their privacy.
But the bigger question is, who is the onus of protection of privacy on, law makers or unassuming citzens?
Fig: The aim of the project
THE EXPERIMENT
In this piece, we invited passerbys to share their proof of identification with the team to enter a lucrative (fake) lottery.
We wanted to see how people respond to this.
We set up this stall in the very busy street market of Ahmedabad in Teen Darwaza.
In this process many passerby’s took keen interest in what the stall had to offer. The ones who gave into the scheme, were quickly sent over to the art director of the performance, who would explain to them, what just happened, this was creating a loop in behaviour change.
Watch the short clip to see the social experiment in action.
In this process many passerby’s took keen interest in what the stall had to offer. The ones who gave into the scheme, were quickly sent over to the art director of the performance, who would explain to them, what just happened, this was creating a loop in behaviour change.
Watch the short clip to see the social experiment in action.
THE EXPERIENCE
We created deliberate ‘red flags’ throughout the experiment in the hopes that our participants would identify them.
We told our participants that if they want to sign up for the lottery, they must share their ID proof 🚩️, in most cases their Aadhaar card. (the government of India had issued various kinds of notices to not share one’s info)
This led to the next step, we would show them ads and pamphlets of the lottery to convince the participants– these were all of course, fake and photoshopped. 🚩️ There were deliberate mistakes here 🚩️ and an experiment disclaimer.
If partcipants ignored all these red flags and proceeded to share their personal information with us, they were sent into a second feedback loop. Here, they were told about what just occured. They were also made aware through anecdotes what would happen in a different scenario if malicious actors were in play.
This led to the next step, we would show them ads and pamphlets of the lottery to convince the participants– these were all of course, fake and photoshopped. 🚩️ There were deliberate mistakes here 🚩️ and an experiment disclaimer.
If partcipants ignored all these red flags and proceeded to share their personal information with us, they were sent into a second feedback loop. Here, they were told about what just occured. They were also made aware through anecdotes what would happen in a different scenario if malicious actors were in play.
Fig: Collaterals of Make-belief with red flags
Fig: Collaterals of Make-belief with red flags
The lottery stall was like a set out of a movie with ‘collaterals of make-belief’. This was crucial to create a believable suspension to convince passerbys. Deliberate mistakes ensured that everything seemed almost legitimate.
