Balancing Privacy and Value Creation in the Platform Economy: The Role of Transparency and Intervenability

Abstract

Data are essential in the platform economy to create value. Since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) demands a high level of protection for personal data, it becomes challenging for small- and medium-sized businesses to provide both: data-based services and compliance to the GDPR. Therefore, the paper focuses on the privacy protection goals of transparency and intervenability to enable privacy friendly business models. To better understand how this approach supports the needs of small- and medium-sized platform providers, a qualitative interview study is conducted. Especially, the lack of legal certainty and the unclarity of how the GDPR can be implemented compliantly in practical terms is found to be a challenge. Based on the interviews, requirements are derived which a personal rights management tool enabling transparency and intervenability should fulfill such as supporting legal compliance or reducing operational complexity. In summary, small- and medium-sized platform providers see providing transparency and intervenability as a promising new approach which they are willing to deploy given the right personal rights management tool.