CHS: Small: Multidisciplinary Design Approaches for Privacy and Security

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Digital devices and everyday objects are increasingly becoming smart, connected, and artificially intelligent, and though this promises numerous benefits, it also raises new privacy concerns and introduces new security vulnerabilities. These concerns and vulnerabilities are wide-ranging, although they affect people differently depending on someone's background, identity, and context. For example, smart devices such as fitness trackers, voice controlled smart speakers, and facial recognition smart cameras can be used to monitor family members, share personal health data with third parties, surveil nannies and caregivers, harass and abuse intimate partners, and trick users into sharing passwords or divulging secrets. This project will develop novel prototypes and strategies for addressing privacy and security concerns arising from smart devices that are sensitive to the people and contexts with which they are used. The main novelty of this project will be its multidisciplinary approach that combines expertise in digital privacy and security with expertise in the design disciplines of interaction, industrial, graphic, and architectural design. By involving diverse non-expert and expert participation in the design, development, and assessment of prototype solutions, this project will broaden participation in privacy and security research and education in order to generate solutions and strategies that are inclusive, appropriate, fair, and effective for everyone. A key aim of this project is to look for alternatives to the informed consent and usable choice approaches that currently drive most user-oriented privacy and security research. These approaches often fail: privacy policies are often ignored or impenetrable, and can actually decrease trust even when clearly written, while choice-based approaches often fail to fit privacy decisions and preferences that vary widely according to experience, personality, identity, ability, and situation. To address these issues, the research team will conduct qualitative fieldwork and participatory design research that invites diverse non-expert and expert participation. This multidisciplinary approach aims to contribute to privacy, security, and human-centered computing research by (1) generating novel multiform, socially-sensitive, and contextually-appropriate solutions to address current and future privacy and security issues, particularly those associated with the proliferation of connected, artificially-intelligent, and "always-on" everyday technologies, (2) broadening and diversifying participation in privacy and security problem framing, solutions-finding, and discourse, and (3) developing forward-looking methods, strategies, and exemplar prototypes for engineering, computer science, design, policymaking, and other experts and professionals to anticipate and respond to future privacy and security concerns. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.