CAREER: Examining Users' Collective Privacy Management for Online Social Networks

为了更好地阐明隐私在Web2.0世界中是一种动态和辩证的现象，本项目提出了一套基本的实证研究活动，以调查在线社交网络中隐私的三个方面：概念化、干预和意识。这一职业奖的目标是：1)以跨学科的方式提高在线社交网络背景下对信息隐私的理论理解；2)评估技术专家和监管机构制定或提出的各种隐私干预策略的有效性；3)发展和增强隐私和安全意识和培训计划的说服力。这项研究的主要贡献是建立了一个跨学科的隐私研究框架，广泛地基于行为科学、计算机科学、信息系统、传播和社会心理学中的一系列多学科隐私文献。与严格关注数据隐私方面的大量工作相比，这项研究从整体上看待隐私。因此，它认识到在评估和开发隐私保护方法时用户感知和行为的关键重要性。为了更好地将用户隐私行为的社会分析与隐私增强技术的技术设计联系起来，提出的三项任务是非常必要的。这项工作应该有助于基础科学--围绕隐私管理的用户感知和行动的基础--以及为隐私增强技术的设计提供信息而产生的发现。这些研究成果可以使面向技术的研究人员开发出更可行的隐私增强技术，这些技术嵌入到系统的设计规范中，并与组织实践和用户行为保持一致。本项目将采用多种实证研究方法(实验、大规模调查、焦点小组和社会网络分析)来检验在线社交网络背景下用户隐私行为背后的行为假设。良好的调查和实地实验将有助于我们了解在线社交网络的实际用户如何行为，以及哪些干预措施(在技术、法规和培训方面)可能会改变他们的隐私决策和行为。三大研究重点之一是为在线社交网络用户制定隐私意识和培训计划。这一发现可能会对提高用户社区的隐私和安全意识产生巨大影响。该项目还对行业监管机构和政府机构的指导方针制定产生了影响。PI的目标是将关于隐私保障的动态和辩证性质的知识储存库转变为她在宾夕法尼亚州立大学的学术家中的一些教育活动。该教育计划描述了在本科生和研究生两级开发关于隐私保护的新课程和课程模块，将研究带入课堂，向代表性不足群体的学生推广，并培训本科生和研究生研究人员使用跨学科方法。PI将她的科学变成了一个隐私研讨会，供高中女孩和她们的父母教授在线隐私问题和做法。她建议继续这样的努力，以提高高中女生的隐私和安全意识，并吸引更多的女学生参加宾夕法尼亚州立大学的安全和风险分析课程。该协会还将与专业协会--信息系统协会合作，设立隐私研究分会和隐私教育学分会，将信息系统研究议程和课程扩展到全国这一重要领域。

To better articulate privacy as a dynamic and dialectic phenomenon in a Web 2.0 world, this project proposes a set of basic empirical research activities to investigate three aspects of privacy in online social networks: conceptualization, intervention, and awareness. The goals of this CAREER award are to: 1) improve the theoretical understanding of information privacy in the context of online social networks in an interdisciplinary manner; 2) assess the efficacy of various privacy intervention strategies developed or proposed by the technologists and regulators; and 3) develop and enhance the persuasiveness of privacy and security awareness and training programs. The main contribution of this research is the generation of an interdisciplinary privacy research framework, with extensive grounding in a range of multidisciplinary privacy literatures in behavioral sciences, computer science, information systems, communication, and social psychology. This research takes a holistic view of privacy compared to the large amount of work focusing strictly on data privacy aspects. Thus, it recognizes the critical importance of user perceptions and behaviors when evaluating and developing privacy protection approaches. The proposed three tasks are greatly needed to better connect the social analysis of user privacy behaviors with the technical design of privacy enhancing technologies. The work should contribute to basic science-the underpinnings of user perceptions and actions around privacy management-as well as the findings generated for informing the design of privacy enhancing techniques. The research findings can enable technology-oriented researchers to develop more feasible privacy enhancing techniques that are embedded into the design specifications of systems, as well as aligned with organizational practices and user behaviors. This project will adopt various empirical research methods (experiments, large-scale survey, focus group and social network analysis) to test the behavioral hypotheses underlying user privacy behaviors in the context of online social networks. Well executed surveys and field experiments will contribute substantially to our understanding of how the actual users of online social networks behave and what interventions (in terms of technologies, regulations and trainings) may change their privacy decisions and behaviors.One of the three major research thrusts is to develop a privacy awareness and training program for users of online social networks. The findings could potentially have a large impact on promoting privacy and security awareness in the user community. The project also has impacts on guideline creation for industry regulators and government agencies. The PI aims to transform the repository of knowledge on the dynamic and dialectic nature of privacy assurance into a number of educational activities in her academic home at Penn State. The educational plan describes the development of new courses and course modules on privacy assurance at both undergraduate and graduate levels, bringing research into classrooms, outreach to students in underrepresented groups, and training of undergraduate and graduate student researchers in interdisciplinary methods. The PI has transformed her science into a privacy workshop for high-school girls and their parents to teach about on-line privacy issues and practices. She proposes to continue such efforts to promote privacy and security awareness among high-school girls, as well as to attract more female students into the program of security and risk analysis at Penn State. The PI will also work with a professional society, the Association for Information Systems, to create a privacy research chapter and a privacy pedagogy section to extend the Information Systems research agenda and curriculum into this important area nationally.