CAREER: Designing Human-Centered Privacy, Security, and Data Ethics for Non-Primary Smart Device Users

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The introduction of smartphones and tablet computers began a trend of people owning and using multiple “smart" computing devices connected to sensors and the Internet. Popular smart devices include watches, doorbells, cameras, locks, televisions, and speakers. Smart devices offer better ways of living, working, playing, creating, and caring for others. But they also introduce privacy concerns, security vulnerabilities, and potentials for unfair and opaque uses. For example, people may use smart security cameras to surveil and monitor the activities of neighbors, domestic workers, passersby, and other household members. Smart devices with spatial sensing capabilities--such as microphones, cameras, and location tracking--may identify and track people nearby. Non-primary users, such as guests, roommates, and delivery drivers, may interact with smart devices, but with limited awareness, consent, and control. This project will study how primary and non-primary users interact with smart devices, and each other, to better understand their concerns and preferences. Findings will be used to develop prototypes for new products and interfaces to improve privacy for non-primary users. Insights from these prototypes will be generalized into design recommendations for practitioners and educators. The project will also address design tradeoffs and stakeholder conflicts that demand policy and strategy responses beyond purely technological solutions. The education plan incorporates digital privacy, cybersecurity, and data ethics into design and human-computer interaction education and outreach activities.This research will apply interdisciplinary design processes to develop design prototypes, patterns, and principles for improving human-centered data privacy, security, and interrelated ethical concerns, including trust, transparency, and fairness. Design principles are practice-based heuristics or guidelines used to understand design problems and to make and explain design decisions. Design patterns are generalized solutions to recurring design problems. They are commonly used across many fields of design and software engineering. Fieldwork will be conducted to understand the practices and preferences of diverse stakeholders with a focus on non-primary users of smart devices. Empirical results will inform the design, development, deployment, and analysis of novel prototypes corresponding to design patterns. This research will contribute to a long-term research program integrating design, engineering, and privacy/security expertise to promote positive social change and ethical research and practice.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.