Wael Bayaydh (The researcher in the university of Oxford-UK, and member of St-Hilda’s College) has finished a study about security and privacy concerns with the smart homes and smart devices that can live stream information, or collect and store data (e.g., information, audio, and/or video) about home residents and bystanders who are in range. The detailed scientific paper will be published in the ACM-CHI2022 (i.e., The international computer human interaction conference). The smart devices’ capabilities and unprecedented levels of data collection from inside the home are raising concerns about privacy and security, including for example issues surrounding consent practices for data collection and use (e.g. dark patterns and persuasive design practices to gain consent), how personal data is protected by companies and third parties (e.g. smart CCTV or nanny-cams being breached to stream video outside the home), or even how smart technology can be misused by users against other members of the same household (e.g. intimate partner or domestic abuse). This is further complicated by the fact that homes are private spaces in which the privacy rights of smart home users and bystanders are not clearly established, and also where culturally and socially acceptable privacy norms and practices are continually evolving in the face of highly innovative and changeable technology.
The vast majority of privacy research in the smart home has focused on western contexts (e.g., Europe, and North America) however, as smart technology becomes more ubiquitous, we argue that non-western perspectives have been overlooked and require close attention in order to provide more suitable privacy solutions that fit the contextual needs more closely. In this paper, the researchers report on the results of a qualitative study aimed at exploring the
privacy concerns of domestic workers in smart homes to examine smart homes to explore privacy attitudes and practices, focusing on public awareness of smart devices, worker privacy concerns and expectations, aspirations for privacy control in smart homes, perceptions and expectations of privacy rights, and contextual influences (i.e., social norms, customs, and religious background).
The researchers have interviewed multiple stakeholders using semi-structured interviews, which we then translated, transcribed, and analysed using Grounded Theory. The team have identified 5 themes: a) Weak public awareness of smart technologies and basic understanding of user privacy in the smart home; b) Privacy concerns, and expectations — highlighting that cameras are reported to be the most concerning devices; c) Perceptions that worker privacy rights are limited and power dynamics between workers and employers are asymmetric, which leaves workers with no choice other than accepting situations where employers use smart devices to monitor them; d) Contextual, social, and religious influences on privacy concerns, practices and rights; and e) Aspirations for innovative privacy control features to compensate for perceived problems with existing solutions. The paper concludes with some recommendations to mitigate the impact of smart home devices on bystander privacy and discusses future research avenues.
