Designing for Pragmatists and Fundamentalists: Privacy Concerns and Attitudes on the Internet of Things

Research output: Contribution to book/conference proceedings/anthology/reportConference contributionContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Lesandro Ponciano - , Chair of Systems Engineering (Author)
  • Pedro Barbosa - (Author)
  • Francisco Vilar Brasileiro - (Author)
  • Andrey Brito - (Author)
  • Nazareno Andrade - (Author)

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) systems have aroused enthusiasm and concerns. Enthusiasm comes from their utilities in people daily life, and concerns may be associated with privacy issues. By using two IoT systems as case-studies, we examine users' privacy beliefs, concerns and attitudes. We focus on four major dimensions: the collection of personal data, the inference of new information, the exchange of information to third parties, and the risk-utility trade-off posed by the features of the system. Altogether, 113 Brazilian individuals answered a survey about such dimensions. Although their perceptions seem to be dependent on the context, there are recurrent patterns. Our results suggest that IoT users can be classified into unconcerned, fundamentalists and pragmatists. Most of them exhibit a pragmatist profile and believe in privacy as a right guaranteed by law. One of the most privacy concerning aspect is the exchange of personal information to third parties. Individuals' perceived risk is negatively correlated with their perceived utility in the features of the system. We discuss practical implications of these results and suggest heuristics to cope with privacy concerns when designing IoT systems.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the XVI Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM), New York
Pages21:1-21:10
Number of pages10
ISBN (electronic)9781450363778
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

Scopus 85045105113
ORCID /0000-0002-5724-0094/work/142241497

Keywords