playful pinball machine by felix mollinga visualizes the flow of personal data

design academy eindhoven graduate felix mollinga has invented a playful way to help children who grow up in the digital world understand the true value of personal information. presented during this year’s dutch design week at the school’s graduation show, databall_ is a pinball machine that visualizes the flow of personal data, covering all aspects of daily digital life, from a chat history, to photos, and online purchases.

all images courtesy of felix mollinga

aiming at making kids aware of their online tracks, felix mollinga has come up with a fun game that consists of data in the form of 60 silver spheres, and interested parties that are looking to collect these, which are represented through a series of colorful shapes. players bounce the balls past data traders, the government, supervising authorities, and criminals, win points when they hit the data trader pop-bumbers, and lose when they get hacked.

image © design academy eindhoven, by nicole marnati