Abstract

The internet challenges users' privacy in unpreceded ways. Technology companies collect massive amounts of data from online users. They use algorithms that can track and analyze each activity by each user. Even though many users worry about their online privacy, they keep revealing more personal data. This study explores the causes behind online privacy erosion. While tech companies and governments aim to achieve economic and political goals, users are motivated by social motives. Online Privacy erosion leads to many harms to individuals and societies while collecting, processing, and disseminating data. Moreover, this study argues that the current legal approaches, especially the GDPR and the Egyptian law for data protection, fail to effectively protect data privacy because they could not overcome the complexity of data privacy. Online users act irrationally due to several influences that affect their decisions and undermine their ability to manage their privacy. Therefore, this study argues that applying the libertarian paternalism theory on online privacy would help to promote privacy. Nudging users towards online privacy can be done by architecting choices in a manner that alters users' behavior in a predictable way without omitting any options or changing their economic incentives. Nudges preserve online self-management because they do not forbid any options. They also overcome the privacy complexity by simplifying the options. Finally, this study introduces some nudges designs that can enhance users to protect their privacy.

School

School of Global Affairs and Public Policy

Department

Law Department

Degree Name

LLM in International and Comparative Law

Graduation Date

Summer 6-15-2022

Submission Date

1-24-2022

First Advisor

Hani Sayed

Committee Member 1

Thomas Skouteris

Committee Member 2

Jason Beckett

Extent

56 leaves

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

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