Towards an Affordance-Based Typology of Personal Data Stores

Abstract

Personal Data Stores are often presented as a tool for data subjects to take back control over the processing of their personal data. Backed by data portability and access rights afforded by recent European legislative efforts, these Personal Data Stores are to collate various personal data in a digital location under the control of the data subject, effectively disconnecting data from applications. Through a review of 16 existing Personal Data Stores, this paper provides a timely affordance-based typology covering data processing, sharing and consent options, and (data) visualisation. We find six distinct Personal Data Store affordances: i) Data sharing, ii) Access and control, iii) Secure storage, iv) Cognition, v) Authentication, and vi) Monetisation. Notably, the data sharing affordance is the most commonly available in our sample of Personal Data Stores. These findings can inform the design and development of personal data stores by providing a typology for understanding the affordances that should be considered when creating new data store offerings.