Network of Excellence Internet Science Summer School. The theme of the summer school is "Internet Privacy and Identity, Trust and Reputation Mechanisms". More information: http://www.internet-science.eu/

1. Privacy Awareness: An
inclusive design approach
Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Information
Security Group, Royal Holloway

3. Outline
• Objectives of the project
• Research design
• Engagement evolution
• Lessons learned

4. VOME
• A five party
consortium
• Funded by
Technology Strategy
Board, EPSRC and
ESRC
• Interdisciplinary
project

6. Goal
• Designing privacy awareness tools
– Both social and technological tools
• Underpinning the design with explanatory
power to enable more efficient and
effective tool deployment (prediction)

8. Context
• On-line public service delivery
– Broad set of demographics
– Variable levels of digital and visual literacy
– Communities: service users, families of
service users, service providers and third
parties

9. Contextualising the Debate
• Situated fieldwork
– Formal and informal education
– Older internet users
– NEETs
– Young parents
• Contextualised in the shifting landscape
public service debate
– E.g. NEETs to NEATs

10. Outputs
• Social interventions:
– Music video
– Short stories
– Game
• Technical interventions:
– Design principles for privacy awareness
– Cartographies of information flows
– Communication tools

12. Proposition
• The value of the proposition depends on
the ethos of the service
– Descriptive power
– Engagement
– Empowerment

13. Outline
• Objectives of the project
• Research design
• Engagement evolution
• Lessons learned

14. Overall Approach
• Mediated through gatekeepers
• Within the communities themselves
• In consultation with the community
• Mixed methods of engagement
• Across a range of demographics

15. Panorama
of
the
City
of
New
York.
(Robert
Moses/Leeser
Associates
1964)

16. Conceptual Perspectives
• Three broad categories (Introna, 1997):
– privacy as no access to the person or the
personal realm;
– privacy as control over personal information ;
and
– privacy as freedom from judgement or
scrutiny by others.

17. Concern and Its Expression
• Information privacy concern refers to an
individual s subjective views of fairness
within the context of information privacy
(Campbell 1997)
• Interestingly: no literature refers to how
these concerns are expressed - either in
the metaphors, images or languages used
or in the means of expression

18. Concern Trajectory
• Westin and Harris (1998):
– Privacy Fundamentalists, who view privacy as an
especially high value which they feel very strongly
about;
– Privacy Pragmatists, who too have strong feelings
about privacy but can also see the benefits from
surrendering some privacy in situations where they
believe care is taken to prevent the misuse of this
information;
– Privacy Unconcerned who have no real concerns
about privacy or about how other people and
organizations are using information about them

19. Uta
Eisenreich,
Network/Teamwork
sociogram
2002

20. On-­‐line
or
Off-­‐line
• Privacy
isn’t
either
off-­‐line
or
on-­‐line,
it’s
an
entangled
mesh
–
technology
mediated
privacy
is
situated
in
a
physical
world
(and
vice
versa).

21. Baseline
Survey
• The
total
number
of
valid
responses
for
the
survey
was
1048.
• Of
the
1048
respondents,
49.8%
(523)
were
male
and
50.2%
(525)
were
female
• The
mean
age
was
41.0
years
(range:
18
–
82
years)
• Used
quesQons
adapted
from
a
number
of
established
scales
including
Internet
Users
InformaQon
Privacy
Concerns.

22. IUIPC: Collection of Information
ü 34.1% of the respondents
strongly agree that they
are concerned when
online sites collect their
personal information.
Only about 16.1% of the
respondents disagree
that the collection of
personal information by
online sites is a concern.

23. IUIPC: Control of Information
ü 46.8% of the respondents
strongly agree that online
sites should provide them
with the right to exercise
control and autonomy
over decisions about how
their information is
collected, use and
shared. Only 11.6% of
the respondents disagree
that having control over
collected information
about themselves is a
concern.

24. IUIPC: Awareness of Privacy Practices
ü 51.2% of the respondents
strongly agree that
Internet sites seeking
information online should
disclose the way the data
are collected, processed
and used. Only 10.4%
feel that having
awareness of such
privacy practices is not a
concern.

25. Influencers
• Age
• Gender
• Internet experience
• Levels of education

26. Practices
• Two categories of privacy practice
identified (Buchannan et al 2007):
– common sense steps (general caution)
– technical protection of privacy
• Gender divide: females more likely to
undertake general caution and males
more likely to undertake technical
protection measures

27. Off-line Responses to On-line
Problems
• VOME survey agreed with the gender
hypothesis
• The VOME fieldwork did not:
– Much broader range of general caution
activities undertaken by both men and women
– Use of off-line recommender networks (social)
– The use of technical protection measures
depends on who manages the technology

28. Two Dominant Paradoxes
• In VOME research, the following “paradoxes” are
dominant:
– Users are concerned about their privacy, but are unwilling
to engage with privacy technologies. This is in line with the
findings discussed in Buchanan et al.’s work (2007)
• FW: But this doesn’t mean there are no privacy protection
practices
– Users want autonomy over on-line privacy but are
prepared to trade their privacy in return for some reward.
This is in-line with the paradoxes discussed in, for
example, Norberg et al.’s work (2007)
• FW: This does not necessarily mean a financial reward.

31. Paradox or Just Different
Choices?
• VOME at the point of practice shows that:
– Privacy journey is on-going
– Privacy protection practices are related to the
relationship in question and the trust within that
relationship
– Different relationships have different concerns related
to them and different practices (foregrounding)
– Choice of foregrounding and lack of awareness of
privacy risks result in weaker privacy protection
choices

32. Question..
• How do we find out more about those choices?
• Interviews and focus groups delivered as
expected answers
• Surveys delivered as expected patterns
• Neither approach told us much about practices,
their link to concerns and how privacy
awareness was built
• Neither approach reached into the liminal
communities

33. Outline
• Objectives of the project
• Research design
• Engagement evolution
• Lessons learned

34. Who We Engaged With
• Service providers
– Public service providers (local government)
– Central government
– Application developers
– Third sector
– Commercial service providers
• General public
– Community groups
– Young people
– Vulnerable young adults
– General public

35. Methods
• Traditional social research methods:
– Survey
– Interview
– Focus group
• User-centric design methods:
– Questionnaire
– User evaluation
– Interview
• Participatory methods:
– Artistic engagement
– Co-design

36. Traditional Social Research
• Pros
– Can compare against existing baselines
– Using known and trusted approaches
– Researchers familiar with the role
– Obtain a solid overview of patterns of practice
• Cons
– Difficult to move beyond the known
– Participants unfamiliar with the role and fear failure
– Language barrier
– Lengthy process
– Technology can have a passive role

38. User-Centric Design
• Pros
– Derive requirements from the users of existing and
potential systems
– Engages with the owners of the problem space and
with the potential users of any outputs; therefore
gains a range of perspectives
– Technology has an equal role in the research
• Cons
– Affirmative design
– Language barrier
– Participants are often passive actors

40. Participatory Methods
• Pros
– Participants and researchers are on a more equal
footing
– Language barrier reduces
– Participants drive the direction of the research
– Output that can be used in different ways
– Strong explanatory power
• Cons
– A less well-known approach
– Expensive
– Resource intensive for set-up
– Risk of failure

42. Outline
• Objectives of the project
• Research design
• Engagement evolution
• Lessons learned

43. Lessons Learned
• Can be divided into three groups:
– Control Tension
– Situation
– Segmentation

44. Where to Next
• Three case studies for technical interventions:
– Sunderland City Council’s Child Poverty Portal
– Information values map for Safe@Last
– Community support network for community action
(Pallion, West Sunderland)
• Evaluation of the game and music video:
– Social marketing methods
– User experience evaluations

46. Thank you
• More details can be found at:
http://www.vome.org.uk
• Publications at:
http://www.vome.org.uk/publications/
• Video collection at:
http://www.vome.org.uk/videos/
• Interventions at:
http://www.vome.org.uk/toolkit/