Son Mis Datos: Building Personal Data Literacies through Citizen Data Audits

This paper reports the results of a pilot projct to build functional, reflexive, critical and tactical personal data literacies through citizen audits of corporate data practices in the digital economy. The project, called Son Mis Datos (It's My Data), leveraged the personal data access provisions of Peru's national data protection law to help participants access the personal data that private companies hold about them. The work was completed in collaboration with the Peruvian digital rights advocate HiperDerecho which built a website called http://www.SonMisDatos.pe to facilitate personal data requests. Once participants had requested their data, they were invited to conduct citizen data audits of corporate data practices. The project found that citizen data audits are an effective tool for building personal data literacies, and they also show promise for supporting a more engaged citizenry equipped to build a more citizen-centric data economy. However, the project also found that in order to realize this promise, it is important to confront the liberal and individualistic tendencies of privacy frameworks, and find ways to anchor both citizen data audits and personal data literacies in the criteria and local cognitive processes of the affected communities.