Text Annebelle de Bruijn

WHO? Doctoral candidate Alejandra Gómez Ortega (IDE)
WHAT? Dataslip
WHERE? TU Delft Library

Alejandra Gómez Ortega has been touring the campus with her ‘cash dispenser for data use’. Her mission: to make it clear what data you leave behind online. The ‘Dataslip’, as Gómez Ortega prefers to call it, is similar to a supermarket cash dispenser, but slightly more brightly lit. Instead of entering an amount of cash, users answer a brief series of questions about their daily lives. What apps are on their phone? Do they use a loyalty card? Based on their responses, the Dataslip prints out a slip. This shows which data their apps, loyalty card and other cards or passes are recording. It issues some people with slips as long as their arm and others that are two metres long.

In recent months, Gómez Ortega has taken her machine to various places on campus in an effort to make as many students and staff as possible aware of the digital data footprint they leave behind every day. “Everyone knows that all kinds of devices, apps and companies collect lots of data, but it’s often still very abstract”, says Gómez Ortega. “You know there’s a lot of it, but often have no idea what the data actually looks like. This slip makes that clear.”

Want to know more? In October, Dataslip features at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.

© Marcel Krijger