Should we create some sort of a glossary?

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1

Editorial point:
´I do not like the use of “we” in the article and probably others as well. There is a mixup between “we” as prvact and “we” as users/data providers. I understand that of course we are both - but sometime one is meant, sometimes the other. For someone reading it, that is not part of privact (yet), this may be confusing. I think we should only use “we” if we talk about privact.

I suggest “users” for users/data providers. “data provider” sounds quite technical and may not be understood by everyone at first. Or even “citizien” to make clear that this is not about users of a specfic application, but rather a use case in everyday’s life.

It is just becoming more clear to me as I write this:

  • Citizien: When we talk about people as part of society and empowering them to free themselves of data surveillance.
  • User: When we talk about use cases from a users point of view. E.g. how it works for someone who is using one more more tools that are privact compliant.
  • Data provider: When we talk about the internal working and concepts, in particular the data model, access to it, …

I think it would be helpfull if we try to stick to this convention to make the texts more accessible for newcomers.

2

Good point. Thinking about this a bit - there are really a lot of "us"es and "we"s around. Let me give it a go:

  • Citizen (individual data provider)
  • Society
  • Initiatives (working on digital privacy / de-centralized data storage)
  • Free software projects
  • NGOs
  • Researchers
  • Service Providers
  • Our community here
  • The e.V (to be established)
  • Our NGO we aim to establish

User is kind of orthogonal to this for me. As (almost) every role / aspect / sub-group of “us” also has to interact with the technical system at some point, we might just add “User” to every role whenever talking about this.

As want to be a platform to discuss and unite, I think all these are valid aspects of “us” - and we need to be precise who we talk about, when we talk about us… Perhaps the start to some sort of glossary?

3

Glossary is a great idea, for people first reading up to it, but also for ourselves, so that we use consistent language.

I would like to start high level and drill downwards:
Let’s begin with the big roles:

  • Data users/consumers
  • Users or citizens
  • privact
  • NGO
    For each we should have a short definition, what roles they play in this and how they benefit from this.
4

Still having trouble with data providers. Besides it being too technical, are we not distinguishing between the user and the various sources she owns? E.g. is a biometric clock not the data provider as might be some app the user is using? Or do we use a different term for that?

5

What we are definitely missing is a definition what we consider “data” to be. I like to have a very broad definition, around the line:

Every data that gets produced - directly or indirectly - through users actions is personal data. This data belongs to the user, but the creating service / source always has the right to read it.

And yes “data provider” is not a good term. Currently I think “Citizen” might be a good name for the person participating in the system and hence being the source and owner of her data and “Service” or “Service provider” refers to the tool / organization that puts data into the pool.

6

Create a gloassary! Otherwise we will have to write everything twice.

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7

This site needs a glossary. 'nough said. :slight_smile:

8

My suggestion is to use Tags for this. I created a tag “glossary”. Post any glossary posts in “Introduction” and tag them accordingly.