Minimalist approaches to enforce privacy by design in surveys

Abstract

Public institutions and private companies both frequently rely on user surveys for a variety of assessments (e.g. equality issues or quality of work environment). However, many such surveys struggle to garner sufficient responses, especially when they ask about sensitive subjects (such as work harassment), which also makes them exist in a legal grey area when it comes to data protection laws. One important factor in this issue is the perceived threat of deanonymisation, compounded by the frequent lack of transparency on how the data is used. The proposals seeking to address this issue often focus on complex cryptography (e.g. homomorphic encryption), without addressing the fears of non-technical users.This paper explores a radically different approach which minimises data collection on multiple fronts, partially by limiting the power of survey organisers. By design, it prevents generic attempts to deanonymise participants, as the server never stores even pseudonymised information. We also try to address questions of inclusivity, once again through a minimalist approach. Finally, we report on the first live test of a prototype developed following this approach.