Do-It-Yourself Data Protection—Empowerment or Burden?

Data protection by individual citizens, here labeled do-it-yourself (DIY) data protection, is often considered as an important part of comprehensive data protection. Particularly in the wake of diagnosing the so called “privacy paradox”, fostering DIY privacy protection and providing the respective tools is seen both as important policy aim and as a developing market. Individuals are meant to be empowered in a world where an increasing amount of actors is interested in their data. We analyze the preconditions of this view empirically and normatively: Thus, we ask (1) Can individuals protect data efficiently; and (2) Should individuals be responsible for data protection. We argue that both for pragmatic and normative reasons, a wider social perspective on data protection is required. The paper is concluded by providing a short outlook how these results could be taken up in data protection practices.