Mapping the patterns of sharing data in social networks , so-called data mining, giving businesses and stakeholders huge opportunities to reach individuals and specific target groups with different offers.

Your privacy and personal digital profile is the focus of an interdisciplinary research project , USEMP where Luleå University of Technology and the Centre for Distance -spanning Technology , CDT, collaborates with universities and companies in six European countries.

Apps that give you warnings how the data you provide in social media may be used by others, and tools to help you assess the data you provide into money , will be the result of the project, says Anna Ståhlbröst , senior lecturer of informatics at Luleå University of Technology. Technology can help citizens to take control of the data that leaks out when we are on-line. It also help individuals to do business and sell their data to various companies and stakeholders.

Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance of citizens, pin points new issues around privacy  online. Results from the USEMP project is also expected to contribute to the debate about mass surveillance . The USEMP project analyzes legislation linked to digital social networks , user’s needs and concerns , marketing and payment models and how new knowledge can be translated to new applications and tools to protect and support the individual user on-line.

Source: http://www.ltu.se/centres/cdt/Nyheter/Ta-kontroll-over-din-data-i-cyberrymden-1.116658?l=en