Blockchains and the GDPR pursue similar objectives where they seek to grant users greater control over their personal data. While the latter pursues this goal by imposing duties of care to centralised controllers and collectors of data, blockchains go a step beyond by trying to eliminate these...

Economics offer different but complementary approaches to understanding privacy and security. For this inaugural contribution to the new In Our Orbit department, I was asked to explain briefly their methodological differences and similarities, and why they matter in our thinking about security...

Various identity management solutions are emerging in different jurisdictions, with the goal of creating a unified and privacy-preserving identity management system bridging the offline with the online. Within this trend, the concept of self-sovereign identity has re-emerged. It is a concept...

Traditional theory suggests consumers should be able to manage their privacy. Yet, empirical and theoretical research suggests that consumers often lack enough information to make privacy-sensitive decisions and, even with sufficient information, are likely to trade off long-term privacy for...

We analyze personal data protection laws in the United States through the lenses of the economic theories of ex ante safety regulation, ex post liability and information disclosure. Specifically, we consider and contrast how legal and economic theories interpret privacy costs and the remedies to...

Privacy and security tools can help users protect themselves online. Unfortunately, people are often unaware of such tools, and have potentially harmful misconceptions about the protections provided by the tools they know about. Effectively encouraging the adoption of privacy tools requires...

While the effectiveness of nudges in influencing user behavior has been documented within the literature, most prior work in the privacy field has focused on ‘one-size-fits-all’ interventions. Recent behavioral research has identified the potential of tailoring nudges to users by leveraging...