PowerPlay

India’s First Data Privacy Awareness Card Game

‘Powerplay’ is a card game designed to build awareness about privacy among the citizens of India. The aim of the game is to maintain the balance between your character’s public and private data when the government infringes upon your privacy.

It has been licensed by Internet Freedom Foundation and has been reaching homes around India.

July 2020

Process Deck

‘The Constitution Project’

‘The Constitution Project’ is a theme that is very topical in contemporary times and more relevant than ever before. ‘As we approach the seventieth anniversary of the birth of our Republic, the gap between our rights and our reality appears to be widening.’ was a statement from our brief which stayed with me.

For my project, I had chosen to work with Article 21 of the Indian Constitution which states that ‘No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law.’ Under this article, ‘Right to Privacy’ is identified as a fundamental right after the Justice K. S. Puttaswamy vs. Union of India case in 2017. The right to privacy was established through various laws on information technology, intellectual property, cybercrimes, and contractual obligations.

In 2019, The Personal Data Protection Bill had been introduced in Parliament. While the bill did seem to provide better protection for the personal data of citizens, it was a bill that promoted state and private interests even at the cost of our privacy. As we are more connected than ever before, it is important as an individual to be aware of how and where our data is going. We need to know where the data could potentially reach and what are the goals behind the data being processed.

Despite such a crying need, there is no concrete law in India that empowers citizens towards protecting their right to privacy. The bill is currently being debated in a Joint Committee of Parliament and promises to provide a strong data protection structure for India. While the bill does seem to provide better protection for the personal data of citizens, it is a bill that promotes state and private interests even at the cost of our privacy.

Through this project, I wished to address the back laying problem of data awareness and make the citizens more aware of the implications of the bill and push them towards voicing their opinions on the same.

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019

The bill has mainly four stakeholders: Data Fiduciaries, Data Processors, Data Principals (citizens) and Data Protection Authority of India. Most of the privacy laws around the world are modelled after the Global Data Protection Regulation. The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 is a regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area. This Indian bill does not include the majority of the emerging rights for the citizens mentioned in the GDPR.

What should never be public?

These are data points taken from the ‘Privacy in India: Attitudes and Awareness’ survey conducted by Ponnurangam Kumaraguru and Niharika Sachdeva. There are some additions that are responses to my conversation with people on what they consider to be the most private data points about themselves.

Also, participants from the survey felt there were stern privacy laws existing in India where as there is no ‘privacy law in India.

“I’ve got nothing to hide, why should I care?”

Data taken together over time, intimate digital patterns emerge and are revealed to those who analyze and profit from them, like businesses and data brokers.

“It’s all a lie, it’ll never happen to us”

Events like the Facebook– Cambridge Analytica data breach, Aadhaar data breaches, exploitation of personal data by governments of China and Kazakhstan prove otherwise.

Target Audience

This is the proposed target audience as most of the participants in the P.K survey and the interviews belonged to this set of people that gave me concrete insights into their behaviour towards the idea of data privacy. The Personal Data Protection bill is a very complex document, and it would take a lot of time and effort for even a highly digital literate person to understand it if not presented in a simplified and comprehensive manner. Choosing any other target audience for a project to be completed in this time period would not allow me to get a well-researched context to ideate within.

User Personas

How to engage citizens in such a context?

Card Game

The ‘Card Game’ would focus on how a player plans to play his personal data when a data privacy related event takes place.

Data Detox Application

This App would facilitate the reduction of data given out by a person in a task per day manner.

Trace a Data Point

The ‘Trace a data point’ platform would focus on using familiar data points and how that data point could be exploited through the bill.

Barter System

The ‘Barter System’ would aim to make the user aware of the value of his/her data using a satirical interface where data can be exchanged for money.

As per my feedback from my jury and interviewees, I went ahead with designing the card game as it had more potential for engagement and impact as compared to others.

Creating a Card Game

I went through a number of brainstorming sessions to narrow down what should be the theme of the game, the game mechanics used and how should I create a flow to make a complete game.

How Might We’s

Game Mechanics

I went over 150 different kinds of game mechanics to understand the best-suited ones for my context. I also explored games centred around those mechanics to see what would fit my theme and intent.

Themes

Action Statements + Game Mechanics

David Bernard Wills is a british researcher who designed the game ‘Privacy’. He suggested a very helpful method to form statements, use game mechanics that compliment those statements and then connect them to form the complete gameplay.

Gameplay Flow

Building Content

Design Iterations

Moodboard

Explorations

Iterations for layout and content for all the elements of the game along with the vote (grey sticker) on the finalised one- cards, logo, packaging and instruction manual