Understanding, protecting and challenging online behaviour (WP3)

Understanding, protecting and challenging online behaviour

Work Package  3  will  analyse  how  issues on online surveillance, accountability  and  legitimacy  affect everyday  online  behaviour in  UK,  Finland  and  Norway.  We will  investigate  how internet  users  see a  border between  their  behaviour  and  illegality  and  whether  the  borders between  different  countries impact  users’  choices  online.  This work  package  will  therefore  investigate  how  different  groups  of  internet  users  behave  online  and  how  this  is  affected  by  their  perceptions  of  privacy,  surveillance  and  legality.

 

We know quite a bit already about general public perceptions of the internet and surveillance. However, we want to know more about the links between what people do online and what they believe. We’re interested, for example, if doing things that breach – or might breach – rules around copyright affects what people think about online surveillance, or if what people think about online surveillance affects how they deal with copyright online. We’re also interested in how beliefs about the impact of state borders affects online behaviour – for example, do concerns about foreign surveillance and laws influence what people do? As a lot is changing at the moment in the UK, Finland and Norway, this is a good time to do this work – so that, in future, we’ll be able to better judge the impact that new legislation and other changes has had.

 

In order answer our questions, we will first look at what previous research can tell us about these issues. We will then use a survey of and interviews with the public – to explore our research questions in more depth. We will carry out research on what some volunteers do online over a set time period – to build a deeper understanding of how online behaviours and beliefs about surveillance interact. We’re keen to engage with participants and the broader public about this research – so we’d welcome your thoughts about what we’re doing at any time. Once we’ve got further along with this part of the project, we will be actively looking to share what we’ve found with the public – and learn more about what you think about it – through research summaries, social media discussions, and other opportunities that come up nearer the time.