Privacy with public access: digital memorials on quick response codes

Abstract

Quick response (QR) codes on gravestones are a relatively new global phenomenon, and the actual number of them is unknown. The placement of a digital gateway on a physical stone is a new form of mediated middle region and a challenge to the classic public–private dichotomy, and this study discusses in detail the implications of the QR-coded gravestones. While some cemetery visitors might consider the gravestone and the digital content private, the visible QR code is also an invitation to the broader public in the shared physical space. Building on privacy as a contextualized matter, the business interests of gravestone makers as well as 30 Danish memorials are analyzed. In a general shift toward the digital in contemporary memorial culture and a growing tendency to online sharing of the emotionally important, QR codes on gravestones are but one example of the ongoing negotiations of privacy and sharing in our digital society.

Keywords:

• QR codes
• digital memorials
• online memorial culture
• mediated middle region
• privacy
• public space

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Stine Gotved is Associate Professor in Digital Communication and Society at the IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark. With a background in Cultural Sociology, she earned her Ph.D. in Cyber Sociology in 2000. Stine Gotved has been involved in the field of internet research since the very beginning and her research interests evolve around the sense of online belonging, digital culture, and social networks. Currently, the research interests are divided between two main areas: (a) how the physical death is manifest in online environments and (b) playful interactions in communities. [email: [email protected]]

Notes

1. QR codes; small checkered patterns to be read with an application on a tablet or smartphone. The QR code can unfold short texts without being online, however the most usual content is a web address (URL) that opens when scanning the code.

2. Nissenbaum (2010) gives two examples of conflicting ways of handling the different takes. In the first example, the spatial dimension is more important than the content. Garbage bins left on the sidewalk (to be picked up by the disposal truck) are sitting in public space and thus it is not a violation of anybody's privacy to sift the content for discarded personal information (p. 99). In the other example, the content is taken to be more important than spatial definitions. The digital ‘spaces’ as electronic mailboxes and web browsers were initially considered as private spaces with private content. By now, some 30 years later, it is accepted that companies own the employer's email traffic, that content providers track the activity, and that most online interactions are collected into big databases (p. 101). The examples underline the complexity and the overlap of the private/public interpretations, as both are regulated within the same legal body (United State court decisions).

3. Hidden from everyday life, both institutionally (special places for the dying and the dead (Giddens, 1992)) and individually (grief as a private matter (Walter, 1999)).

4. Also called a mason or a stone mason. The craft is to cut and chop inscriptions into stones – gravestones, headstones, monuments, etc.

5. I had invaluable help in gathering the empirical material, as my research assistant Klaus Bjerager did a lot of the tedious work. For that he cannot be thanked enough.

6. The number fluctuates as the sector is a change; the craft of stonecutting is challenged by less demand, few apprentices, and the introduction of new technologies for laser cutting.

7. We had a rather simple interview guide and asked the stonecutters (a) if they knew of the phenomenen, and if yes, (b) if they offered the service, and if yes, (c) how many they had sold. No mention of cementeries, nothing about customer identification.

8. The QR codes are printed on a small tile, to be embedded in the gravestone. Cutting the pattern directly into the stone does not give enough contrast for the QR reader to recognize.

9. Livsminder (life memories): http://livsminder.dk/. The tab ‘Personlige minder’ offers direct links to selected memorials behind QR codes.