Data Privacy: Digital Board Game Edition

Help us test and improve our new data privacy game

From health to transportation to finance, the desire for data is greater than ever. Data is often a composition of people’s experiences, their morning commutes, where they live and work, who they love, what type of cereal they like to eat. We use this information to make decisions around infrastructure, to sell products, to understand whether or not organizations are being equitable. But as we make more data available, it’s important to acknowledge and identify potential risks and harms when we release data connected to individuals.

To explore these considerations, the Office of Design and Delivery is making a data privacy game for data analysts of any skill level, including you! It walks players through different types of data and potential risks. Our team is in the testing and iterating phase and looking for feedback. Play around and let me know what you think in the comments, or email me at SarahS.Rodriguez@austintexas.gov.

Instructions:

• Identify a dataset. It can be your own data or data that you get from your local government’s data portal, like the City of Austin’s.
• Once you have your dataset, use the DATA cards to identify the different types of data that exist in your dataset.

Data cards that outline the different types of data that may exist in your dataset. Credit to Pablo Stanley for the use of the Humaaans: Mix & Match illustration library.

• After you’ve identified corresponding data types for each card, place them on the game board.

Game board where you can lay corresponding cards.

• If you have more than one DIRECTLY identifying data type draw a RISK/REWARD card. If you have more than two INDIRECTLY identifying data types, draw a RISK/REWARD card. If you have a LOCATION data type draw a LOCATION RISK/REWARD card pile. If you have either of those cards and a service card draw a SERVICE RISK/REWARD card pile.

REWARD/RISK cards help to identify potential harms or reasons to collect data.

• Finally go through the TOOLS & OPTIONS card pile and pick the card that best works for your data.

TOOLS & OPTIONS cards provide options for privacy strategies.

Thanks for playing, and let me know what you think!