Introduction

In a world where generational change happens cyclically and continuously, intergenerational conflicts arise due to the systems and stereotypes that we face. Alongside this, we can benefit from the knowledge sharing found in intergenerational collaboration and learning. Social media helps provide a way to bridge the gap between all people, regardless of social context (such as a global pandemic) or generational difference. If you desire to connect with someone, it can feasibly be done without much effort.

But that can come with a cost, and a hefty one at that.

In order for its algorithms to function optimally, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and more require a plethora of publicly available information. That information, while unassuming on the surface, can wreak havoc in an unprepared and unwitting user’s life. And the worst part? They might not even be aware they’re giving the social media platforms they use all of the permission they need to do it. Privacy settings are currently clumsily arranged and often thick with unintelligible jargon that is inaccessible to lay folk. Tech savvy users who have the time to custom tailor their privacy settings while still receiving an optimal social media experience may be able to navigate this problem with ease, but that’s not something that you can expect across the broad spectrum of users that each of these social media platforms enjoy.

Enter Talpa

Talpa is a privacy-conscious product that reduces the negative impacts of the increased use of social media due to the physical and mental barriers the people are facing during the pandemic and social distancing requirements. The negative impacts caused by the heightened use of social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more revolve around the increase in data being shared and the increasing importance of privacy literacy among all social media users. This is especially true for users who are not tech-savvy and require more assistance to decipher the plethora of social media sites and each of these users’ privacy settings.

Using social media can connect all of us to the people we want to be connected with, and block those that are trying to harm us with a few critical tweaks to the privacy settings found on each platform.

How does it work?

Talpa is simple. Users begin by choosing a social media platform of their choosing and answer a brief questionnaire that asks them about their various privacy tolerances in a way that is easy to understand and not filled with legalistic jargon. Users then receive a Privacy Risk Profile assessment. They can then take action on this assessment by changing their own social media privacy settings. Or users can pay for a simple and continuously improving automation system that will automatically detect changes in privacy settings, update their settings according to their Privacy Risk Profile assessment, and change their assessment at any time.

Who is Talpa for?

We are primarily catering our product to two extremes: Younger users who are tech-savvy but are not experienced enough to understand the consequences of their privacy insecurity and more elderly users who may have the experience to understand the consequences of being too public with your personal information but do not know how to reflect this sentiment to their social media accounts.

How does Talpa tackle privacy at its core?

Our app is proactive and has privacy intentionally embedded into its user flow and overall design. It does not need any personal data from the user up-front in order to work. Its core functionality will work even when on Incognito mode because the information being provided by the user creates generalized and openly available resources that users can act upon on their own.

The only time the app does personal require information from the user is during the automation phase wherein users can choose to pay for varying degrees of social media privacy security through automated privacy settings customizations. At this point, it is the legal responsibility of our company to provide confidentiality and protection to our paying users and we will be detailing the privacy impact of our paid services as well as provide a risk assessment of the potential drawbacks of using our software to automate their privacy settings. These risks will be mitigated through a various security chain of principles and data security in data anonymization.

According to the GDPR, anonymous data constitutes “information which does not relate to an identified or identifiable natural person or to personal data rendered anonymous in such a manner that the data subject is not or no longer identifiable.” Our software will only require the typical billing details required for users to process their payments, the user’s email, and access to ONLY the user’s privacy settings on each of their authorized social media platforms. The user can choose to turn these settings on or off at will and change their privacy risk profile at any time without incurring any fees or penalties.

Within our platform, only one critical failure point exists and has been intentionally added into the design of the paid version of the product: The automation. The privacy setting automation requires users (in a hypothetical API supported version of each social media platform) to provide permission to change their privacy settings. No other data needs to be gathered aside from purchase information and billing details and the information provided to get their Privacy Risk Portfolio assessment which, in itself, is not inherently telling of a user’s individual personal information. It only requires users to provide information about HOW our software should interact with their social media privacy settings (settings which are typically dials and knobs and does not require information that can be specifically cross-referenced back to the user, hence anonymization of the data), not the specific individual information that the user has in their social media platform.

Built With

• figma
• miro