In 2008 a research project titled Visualisation and Other
Methods of Expression (VOME) commenced. It was an interdisciplinary project funded
by the Economic and Social Research Council, Technology Strategy Board and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. The remit of the project
was to engage with communities that had hitherto not been part of the debate on
privacy and digital service design in order to better understand the basis on which
these communities were willing to share personal information with service
providers. The project ran for three years and focused on digitised public
services. The researchers developed a range of participatory engagement
techniques that were used to elicit a deeper understanding of informational
privacy practices at work in the context of public service delivery. This talk
will present the rationale for developing and deploying these participatory
engagement techniques, describe our engagement programme and highlight some of
the key findings from the project.