Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure
Scandinavians are among the most datafied citizens in the world. With its digitalised welfare states, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish e-governance infrastructures collect massive amounts of data about citizens as they search for jobs, apply for building permits, and check school calendars. In this ar...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sciendo
2025-04-01
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| Series: | Nordicom Review |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2025-0004 |
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| author | Sjøvaag Helle Brantner Cornelia Ferrer-Conill Raul Karlsson Michael Helles Rasmus |
| author_facet | Sjøvaag Helle Brantner Cornelia Ferrer-Conill Raul Karlsson Michael Helles Rasmus |
| author_sort | Sjøvaag Helle |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Scandinavians are among the most datafied citizens in the world. With its digitalised welfare states, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish e-governance infrastructures collect massive amounts of data about citizens as they search for jobs, apply for building permits, and check school calendars. In this article, we analyse the use of third-party trackers (n = 2,761) on Scandinavian municipal websites (n = 745) between 2007–2023. Mobilising the theoretical framework of universalism, our aim is to understand what kind of cost data tracking constitutes for users of digital government services. Results show that Scandinavian municipal websites are dominated by commercial trackers harvesting citizen data for advertising purposes, particularly those provided by Alphabet and Meta. We conclude that commercial user-tracking on Scandinavian municipal websites does not conform to the principle of universality, proposing 1) that governments ensure transparency of the cost incurred by these websites’ data tracking, and 2) that they ban commercial tracking on municipal websites. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-162ec6eddfe64b7f900694545dbd4d5c |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2001-5119 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Sciendo |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordicom Review |
| spelling | doaj-art-162ec6eddfe64b7f900694545dbd4d5c2025-08-20T03:24:55ZengSciendoNordicom Review2001-51192025-04-01461769910.2478/nor-2025-0004Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructureSjøvaag Helle0Brantner Cornelia1Ferrer-Conill Raul2Karlsson Michael3Helles Rasmus4Department of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, NorwayDepartment of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, SwedenDepartment of Media and Social Sciences, University of Stavanger, NorwayDepartment of Geography, Media and Communication, Karlstad University, SwedenDepartment of Communication, Copenhagen University, DenmarkScandinavians are among the most datafied citizens in the world. With its digitalised welfare states, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish e-governance infrastructures collect massive amounts of data about citizens as they search for jobs, apply for building permits, and check school calendars. In this article, we analyse the use of third-party trackers (n = 2,761) on Scandinavian municipal websites (n = 745) between 2007–2023. Mobilising the theoretical framework of universalism, our aim is to understand what kind of cost data tracking constitutes for users of digital government services. Results show that Scandinavian municipal websites are dominated by commercial trackers harvesting citizen data for advertising purposes, particularly those provided by Alphabet and Meta. We conclude that commercial user-tracking on Scandinavian municipal websites does not conform to the principle of universality, proposing 1) that governments ensure transparency of the cost incurred by these websites’ data tracking, and 2) that they ban commercial tracking on municipal websites.https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2025-0004dataficationgovernancethird-party servicestrackersuniversalism |
| spellingShingle | Sjøvaag Helle Brantner Cornelia Ferrer-Conill Raul Karlsson Michael Helles Rasmus Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure Nordicom Review datafication governance third-party services trackers universalism |
| title | Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure |
| title_full | Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure |
| title_fullStr | Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure |
| title_full_unstemmed | Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure |
| title_short | Datafying citizens: Third-party trackers and data-as-payment in government infrastructure |
| title_sort | datafying citizens third party trackers and data as payment in government infrastructure |
| topic | datafication governance third-party services trackers universalism |
| url | https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2025-0004 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT sjøvaaghelle datafyingcitizensthirdpartytrackersanddataaspaymentingovernmentinfrastructure AT brantnercornelia datafyingcitizensthirdpartytrackersanddataaspaymentingovernmentinfrastructure AT ferrerconillraul datafyingcitizensthirdpartytrackersanddataaspaymentingovernmentinfrastructure AT karlssonmichael datafyingcitizensthirdpartytrackersanddataaspaymentingovernmentinfrastructure AT hellesrasmus datafyingcitizensthirdpartytrackersanddataaspaymentingovernmentinfrastructure |