Private and Public in Surveillance Capitalism – Protective and Active Approach

The paper deals with the protection of the private and public spheres in surveillance capitalism. Predictions on consumer behaviour or the so-called behavioural surpluses are extracted from the set of collected (big) data of users/consumers from the so-called digital footprints, which become intelligence data, commodities on the data market. In addition to predicting user behaviour, various behavioural techniques push, or nudge users in a particular desired consumer or political direction or action, or dark nudge techniques when it comes to unauthorized data collection on users in the digital sphere. Surveiling and nudging users is done in the range from caring for their health, well-being and benefits, as well as general and public well-being, to encouraging expenditure, desired behaviour or voting in the desired direction of subjects who create such incentives (corporations, political parties, governments, etc.). The subject of the paper is based on behavioural economics which has introduced behavioural techniques in the field of public policy. The author proposes conceptual model of protective and active approach in the era of surveillance capitalism in the private and public spheres. An overview of the current digital regulation in the EU is given, and the need for further development of the legislative framework that will regulate the issues of supervision and protection of privacy and user data is pointed out.