Ubiquitous Computing - Privacy and Ethical issues

With an exponential increase in computing devices, privacy becomes a major concern. With technology progressively moving towards the internet of things personal space and data are being collected on a scale never before seen in the history of mankind.

Transcript

1. Ubicomp research: Privacy and ethics @ryansukale ryansukale.com
2. Privacy in ubiquitous computing Langheinrich, M. (2010)
3. Why Privacy in a Ubicomp Book? “Perhaps key among [the social issues that embodied virtuality will engender] is privacy: hundreds of computers in every room, all capable of sensing people near them and linked by high-speed networks, have the potential to make totalitarianism up to now seem like sheerest anarchy.” - (Weiser, 1991).
4. Why is privacy important? Privacy provides us with room to experiment
5. Two decades later…. - What exactly does it mean anyway? - Whose privacy does it protect? - When to protect? - To what extent to protect? General Answer: Yeah, you wish.
6. Privacy ! = Security Why? Security: confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of information = essential ingredients for privacy. BUT You can have security without privacy ** think NSA **
7. Why is it important in Ubicomp? - Data collection and processing are core components - Strong security does not solve privacy issues - We need to understand the nature of privacy, its social and legal realities
8. Turning a page from history “My home is my castle” “The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown” - William Pitt, Pariament(1763)
9. What happened since then? - The Kodak Camera - Computers - Smart Labels - Memory Amplifiers - Smart Dust Preserving privacy through isolation is just not as much an option anymore as it was 100 years ago.
10. Enablers of the future Graphene : http://goo.gl/WbRIj5 Invisible computing Anyone?
11. “Privacy is the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.” - Alan Westin BUT: Smart appliances, wearable computers, and activity recognition algorithms allow one to invade the bodily and territorial privacy of another person
12. Is privacy a goal or a service? It may not be either, or it may be both! It is more of an expectation of being in a state of protection without having to actively pursue it.
13. The Privacy Breakdown zonal: spaces, such as one’s home, workplace, or car. relational: relationships in an individual’s life decisional: securing the interpretational powers over one’s life
14. The legal landscape - OECD - Collection Limitation - Data Quality - Purpose Specification - Use Limitation - Security Safeguards - Openness - Individual Participation - Accountable
15. How to address privacy in Ubicomp Work? - Understand Your Application (Consider Users and Use) - Define the Problem (Think Attacker Model in Security) - Know Your Tools (Get the Technical Details Right) **Privacy is not a monotonically behaving function**
16. Information privacy in institutional and end-user tracking and recording technologies Nguyen, D. H., & Hayes, G. R. (2010)
17. Who’s tracking us? Tracking the trackers: Collusion
18. TRT Presents an analysis of attitudes towards everyday Tracking and Recording Technologies (TRT) Two types of TRT’s - Institutional - End-user
19. Common research themes - Ubicomp - Automated capture and access - context-aware computing Common Domains - Ubicomp - Education - Healthcare - Interpersonal relationships - Personalization - Automation
20. Study Design Mixed-methods (i.e. qualitative + quantitative) Surveyed on Attitudes towards Information privacy In General Novel Tech: RFID Everyday Tech: - credit cards - store loyalty cards - electronic toll collection systems - web server records - store video cameras. Interview
21. Study design (contd..) Recruitment More urban - Southern California More rural - Southern Louisiana Age group - 18–29, 30–50, and over 51.
23. Quantitative Analysis - Concern towards information privacy in general were higher when compared with concern for individual technologies - Increased exposure may actually be increasing the concerns people report for general information privacy. - Concern levels change depending on the type of technology queried. - The majority of participants responded that the potential benefits of RFID outweigh its potential costs
24. Qualitative Analysis Overarching themes 1. Threat comprehension 2. Expectations of privacy 3. Situational dynamics
25. Findings - Credit cards are easy to use, but participants often struggled to describe any problems with credit card records. - Several participants commented that they had not spent much time thinking about how such records could negatively affect them. - Of those who had given the records previous consideration, a common response was that such records were mostly irrelevant or harmless.
26. ** Lets rephrase that in a fun-creepy way: I know what you drank last summer ** "Knowing how many coffees I buy, I don’t see a problem with that personally."
27. Findings (contd..) - Participants did often present the impression that they should be concerned. - Participants with inaccurate models of the workings of the technology tended to assume a more dangerous position than is correct.
28. “To trust or not to trust” - Recording was a small price one had to pay to get the services. - Participants reported trusting corporate information use. - Corporations were often seen as having the highest potential to abuse the information they were collecting ** Good CORP, Bad CORP **
29. Discussion of the results - Many people may not understand the collection, processing, and dissemination of recorded consumer data - They may not carry a ‘‘reasonable expectation of privacy’’ - Some situations are likely to provoke more concern and action than others
30. Conclusions - People do not comprehend the tracking and recording capabilities of novel technologies like RFID, and furthermore not of everyday technologies either. - In spite of using regular TRT’s for several years, they struggled to identify and verbalize risks and threats incurred from these technologies.
31. Comparing end-user and institutional TRT’s - Ownership of data ‘‘If you give it to one, the rest of them can get it.’’ But dont organizations need it? http://goo.gl/pG8RqT - Choice Students audiotaping in class, store videotaping - Visibility and awareness “you’re not reminded every time that you do something that somebody’s going to be tracking it.”
32. Comparison (contd..) - Trust ‘‘Because I’m not a fan of the government.’’ - Features of recorded data ‘‘There’s so many people buying so much stuff on credit cards. How would they target one person or just go look at one person?’ - Face Home face - Work face
33. A(possible) glimpse of the future…. Sight: http://goo.gl/DZUu3q
34. And….are we already there?