New research project examines societal technologies for crisis management

How can people use their data to help manage crises in our society without putting their data at risk of misuse? What role can technological configurations or government regulations play in the success of such technologies? Researchers from the Chair of Interorganizational Information Systems, Prof. Dr. Manuel Trenz, together with the team of Prof. Dr. Simon Trang, Professor of Information Security and Compliance at the University of Göttingen, are addressing these questions. The Volkswagen Foundation is funding the "Participatory Surveillance" project with around 100,000 euros until September 2023.

The project investigates success factors and multifaceted impacts of societal apps that rely on participatory surveillance (i.e., voluntary release of individuals' sensitive data) to achieve a greater good. The project team conducts an empirical investigation on different national approaches to coronavirus tracing apps in terms of their technological and regulatory configurations as pioneer case for such societal apps.

The results will support governments in their endeavors to successfully involve citizens with societal technologies to address large-scale problems while informing societies about potential risks of failures and adverse consequences for groups of individuals and society as a whole.

The Press Office of Georg-August-Universität Göttingen has issued a press release concerning this project which can be found here: https://uni-goettingen.de/en/3240.html?id=6264.

Photo credits: Volkswagenstiftung & Pixabay