Privacy and Inclusion

This project focuses on the potential tension between privacy and inclusion in the workplace. To map the experiences and needs of different groups of employees and to combat potential inequality, businesses may want to collect personal information about their employees, such as their sexual orientation or gender identity. However, collecting and processing this data could be in conflict with the privacy of employees. How do ideas from psychology, law, and history together contribute to understanding this tension? The aim of Project P.INC is to provide employers and other stakeholders with practical, evidence-based tools to support them in developing effective diversity policies that respect employees’ rights to privacy. 

Practical, evidence-based tools to support employers in developing an effective diversity policy that respects employees' rights to privacy

Project P.INC originates from an interdisciplinary brainstorm session of the Utrecht Young Academy. Prof. Dr. Jojanneke van der Toorn, Dr. Martine Veldhuizen, and Dr. Stefan Kulk participated in this brainstorm session. With the help of a Seed Money Grant in 2019, from Utrecht University’s Gender and Diversity Hub (part of the Strategic Theme Institutions for Open Societies), they subsequently set up a transdisciplinary consortium of academic institutes, multinationals, non-profit organisations, and platforms such as the Workplace Pride Foundation. 

Together with this consortium, they investigate, for example, the ways in which organisations map the needs of employees, what employees think about these initiatives, and how ideas about privacy play a role in this. They also develop practical tools for employers who want to mitigate the tension between privacy and inclusion. The interdisciplinary project not only brings together psychology, law, and history but also promotes interaction between these disciplines.

Projects