Platforms provide workers with flexibility and lower thresholds for workers to enter the labour market, but platform workers lack social protection and income security. The control that platforms exert over platform workers is at odds with their status as self-employed and has prompted parliamentary hearings and lawsuits. The NWO PlatWork-R project, led by Koen Frenken, addresses the need for new regulations regarding platform work.
Starting February 1, 2025, Martijn Arets will join the CivicIxD Team as part of PlatWork-R project and conduct research on data portability in the gig economy via APIs. He will focus on the experiences and wishes of the workers themselves and on design principles and governance mechanisms that can lead to more control by workers over their data. Part of this study will leverage the KlusCV/GigCV project, where four platforms allow workers to access their reputation data via an API in the form of a digital (PDF) resume. More than 30,000 resumes have been downloaded. Therefore, this project provides unique insights about the workers who downloaded their data.