Page 286 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS493 Sofie d.B. et al.
effects. As such, sensors are just like other data collection instruments. The
final criterion applies when sensors need to be provided to respondents and
in companies and refer to costs associated with their installation and
(operational) use.
From the respondent point of view, sensors may vary in their intrusiveness.
Four criteria follow:
 Willingness: Persons/businesses are willing to consent to provide the
sensor data;
 Data handling: Persons/businesses can retrieve, revise and delete
sensor data on demand, i.e. they have ownership over the data;
 Burden: Persons/businesses are willing to devote the effort needed to
collect and handle the sensor data;
 Feedback: Respondents may retrieve useful knowledge about
themselves;
In order to employ sensors, respondents/companies need to be asked for
consent to activate sensors and to store and send data. Most mobile device
sensors require consent by default. Exceptions are the various motion sensors
that can be activated in Android without consent. However, even without the
technical necessity to ask for consent, there are legal and ethical reasons why
consent is imperative. Willingness to consent varies per type of sensor and
depends on the context and purpose of the measurements. Recent literature,
see Struminskaya et al (2018) for an overview of studies, has investigated
willingness and confirmed differences between sensors and settings.
Obviously, the more intrusive a sensor measurement is, the more respondents
will refuse and the larger the potential damage of missing sensor data. Recent
European legislation require that respondents can get copies of their data and
can request deletion of their data at any time . This requirement puts
2
constraints on the storage of and access to sensor data. Next, sensor
measurement themselves, such as photos or sound recordings, require some
respondent effort. This effort may be too great for respondents so that missing
data and/or lower data quality result. Finally, the sensor data may be fed back
to respondents in an aggregated form and may provide valuable information
to respondents and companies. In the last case, this offers great potential for
a data circle between the NSI and companies.
Sensor data can be collected passively or actively. Passive sensor data is
collected without respondent intervention or feedback, apart from consent. In
active sensor data, respondents are asked to check, revise, accept and/or
supplement sensor data, i.e. the respondent is involved in data collection.
Motives for active sensor data collection are increased response rates,

2 See https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/right-of-access/ and https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/right-to-be-
forgotten/
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