In this chapter, we explore Finnish teenagers’ experiences and understandings of privacy concerning the data stored in and flowing through their smartphones. Building mostly on qualitative interview data collected in Finland, we investigate what kind of factors are meaningful for young people when thinking about privacy on mobile devices, and how the level and nature of privacy required depends on the audience. Our results reveal that banking information, passwords, fingerprints, and locations were considered the most private information on smartphones. A myriad of personal factors affected how certain information was deemed more private than other kinds, hinting that much of this judgement lies in the context. Privacy matters to young people, but it seems to hold more meaning in social contexts and often remains overlooked in institutional settings, where the potential risks of privacy losses may seem unclear, abstract, or even irrelevant.
The data examined in this chapter was collected as part of a larger project entitled “Living within, navigating and appropriating everyday surveillance: Case studies on subjective experiences of surveillance and privacy”, funded by the Academy of Finland (SA 316013, 2018–2023). This particular study was planned in collaboration with the Canadian research project eQuality (funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2015–2022).