With a performative intervention at the re:publica digital conference, Dr. Otmar Lell, Project Manager at ConPolicy, and Felix Büning, PhD candidate at the University of Göttingen, transferred the logic of digital consent mechanisms into the physical world. Acting as a “living cookie banner,” they blocked visitors’ paths between different areas of the conference. Anyone wishing to pass first had to read information, give consent, or navigate complicated opt-out options.
The intervention made it possible to experience firsthand how commonplace digital consent mechanisms have become—and how disruptive they seem when transferred from virtual environments into physical spaces. “In everyday life, we would never accept people constantly stepping into our path and only allowing us to proceed if we consented to surveillance or went through a complicated process to refuse it,” the organizers of the intervention explained. “Yet online, this has become the norm.” The action sparked numerous conversations with attendees from politics, academia, civil society, and the digital economy, including German Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Bärbel Bas.
The intervention took place as part of the research project PRIME. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Research, Technology and Space, the project investigates how virtual worlds can be designed to better protect privacy.