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Understanding HCI Issues in Privacy

Explore the complexities of privacy in the realm of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) with a focus on user control, differing privacy concerns, the privacy problem, and why privacy remains a challenging issue in HCI. Learn about the nuances of personal data control, social interactions, and the gap between stated preferences and actual behavior.

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Understanding HCI Issues in Privacy

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  1. HCI Issues in Privacy Mark Ackerman Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and School of Information University of Michigan DIMACS July, 2004

  2. Overview of talk • HCI • What is “privacy”? • The “privacy problem” • Why is privacy hard?

  3. HCI • Human-Computer Interaction • User control aka User-centered • Not just about user interfaces • Cognitive versus micro-sociology • Broad view of HCI • Combined social and technical co-design space • Empirically driven (both as science and development process)

  4. Privacy • What is “privacy” • Differing but connected senses in social psychology, micro-sociology, policy literatures • Solitude • Regulation of social interaction (Altman) • A private (versus public) space or activity • Avoiding unwanted personal disclosure or noise • Freedom from surveillence • Control over release and dissemination of personal data • Control over one’s persona (Goffman)

  5. Privacy • What is “privacy” • Control over one’s personal data • Control over release and dissemination • Overlapping with security but different • Inherently a tension between person and others • Thought to be critical element in using a commercial Web site, adoption of ubicomp

  6. The “Privacy Problem” • Privacy is important • Growing problem for users • Consumers see privacy as a big problem • 41% of sampled US consumers very concerned about their privacy [Harris Poll, 2000] • 92% of respondents indicated that even when companies promised to keep personal data private, they would not actually do so [Light 2001] • 57% of sampled US consumers want better legal protection [Harris Poll, 2000]

  7. The “Privacy Problem” • But privacy is not a monolithic problem • Differing attitudes in different cultures

  8. The “Privacy Problem” • But privacy is not a monolithic problem • Differing types of privacy concerns (Culnan and Armstrong 1999) • Unauthorized access • Risk of secondary use • Reuse of personal data for unrelated purposes without consent • Sharing with third-parties • Creation of profiles

  9. The “Privacy Problem” • But privacy is not a monolithic problem • Attitudes are hardly monolithic • 3 basic groups in US (Ackerman, Cranor, Reagle 1999, based on Westin 1991) • Marginally concerned (27%) • Privacy fundamentalists (17%) • Privacy pragmatics (56%) • Spiekermann et al. found similar in Germany • Based on what people both said they would do in an activity and their actual activity

  10. The “Privacy Problem” • But privacy is not a monolithic problem • Large gap between most people's stated preferences and their actual behavior • But most people want a feeling of control • For example, no automatic transfer of data (86% of sample in Ackerman, Cranor and Reagle 1999)

  11. Why is privacy a hard problem for HCI? • Social theoretic background • Goffman (1961) • Release of personal info is highly nuanced • Presentation of “face” is critically important to people • An everyday activity • Garfinkel (1967) • People expect to be able to make sense of their environments and their activities

  12. Why is privacy a hard problem for HCI? • Social activity is fluid and nuanced • Details of interaction matter (Garfinkel 1967, Strauss 1993) • People handle this detail with agility (Suchman 1987) • What people pay attention differs according to the situation (situated activity, Suchman 1987)

  13. Why is privacy a hard problem for HCI? • HCI problem (also CSCW problem) • Information space is horrendous • At least nine dimensions of analysis (e.g., what, who, intended use, duration of use) • And • Critically important to people • Highly nuanced • An everyday activity • Social-technical gap (Ackerman 2001) • We know what we need to do, but we don’t know how to do it.

  14. Why is privacy a hard problem for HCI? • Ubicomp makes user control even harder: • An individual will operate within many social and organizational contexts, and surrounding social and organizational environments may make use of many individuals' data. • A pervasive software environment, consisting of many systems, may be in a complex relation to “the user.”

  15. More info? Mark Ackerman ackerm@umich.edu http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~ackerman

  16. Privacy Critics • Privacy critics (Ackerman and Cranor 1996)

  17. Privacy Critics

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