Generalized IoT Environments &
Privacy Decision Making

PARITOSH BAHIRAT

UX Researcher | Designer

The Challenge

 

  • IoT serves as a platform to connect a multitude of devices.

 

  • Smart Environments like Smart cities of future will have numerous sensors which may want to consistently access information of a person moving around in the environment.

 

 

  • Notifications as a means of privacy management may not work because of intrusiveness and eventual choice overload for the user

 

 

  • The context in which privacy needs to be managed is much more broader as compared to any other IoT like Smarthome  or Healthcare

 

 

Design of Experiment

 

  • Contextual scenarios were presented to 200 participants

 

  • Scenario is a combination of 5 different parameters
    • Who
    • What
    • Where
    • Reason
    • Persistence

 

  • Each participant is shown 14 scenarios

 

 

 A device of a friend (Who) records your video to detect your

presence (What). This happens continuously (Persistence), while you are at someone else’s place (Where), for your safety (Persistence)

 

  • Participants answered two types of questions:
    • Attitude (Is this scenario Risky? Are you Comfortable with This scenario?)
    • Decision (Would you allow/reject this scenario?)

Results and Design

 

  • 'Who', as in which IoT device is trying to access information in the provided context has the strongest effect on decision

 

  • The effect of parameters (Who, What...) on Behavioral Intention (Allow/Reject) is Mediated by attitudes (Risk, Comfort, Appropriates)

 

  • 'Where', as in the location where information is being exchanged does not have a significant effect on Behvioral Intent.

 

  • Since 'Who' has the main effect on participant behavior, hence it is shown to the user at the very first page of UI.