The Realities of Disclosure Risks in the Age of Dark Patterns and Big Data

The emergence of big data has led to unprecedented data collection which has been shown to erode the privacy rights of individuals. One of the causes of this erosion is the prevalence of dark patterns which have been shown to manipulate individuals into the surrender of their privacy rights and the heightening of disclosure risks. Going beyond vague commitments to privacy rights by governments, corporations, and even research institutions, existing data protection measures do not seem to be sufficient to adequately mitigate disclosure risks, protect privacy rights, and make use of the gathered data for societal progress. Given the scant and uneven application of regulations on dark patterns, out of the box solutions to disclosure risks should be considered in light of the almost unregulated market for personal information.