Users' Concern for Privacy in Context-Aware Reasoning Systems

TL;DR

This study surveys general users to understand their privacy concerns regarding context-aware systems, revealing higher worries about third-party access, especially from unfamiliar entities, influenced by beliefs about data inference and computer science background.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into user privacy concerns in context-aware systems and identifies factors influencing these concerns, such as data type, third-party familiarity, and user background.

Findings

Users are more concerned about third-party access to environmental sensors than physiological data.

Familiarity with third parties reduces privacy concerns.

Beliefs about data inference influence user privacy concerns.

Abstract

Context-aware reasoning systems allow drawing sophisticated inferences about users' behaviour and physiological condition, by aggregating data from seemingly unrelated sources. We conducted a general population online survey to evaluate users' concern about the privacy of data gathered by these systems. We found that people are more concerned about third parties accessing data gathered by environmental sensors as compared to physiological sensors. Participants also indicated greater concern about unfamiliar third parties (e.g., private companies) as opposed to familiar third parties (e.g., relatives). We further found that these concerns are predicted and (to a lesser degree) causally affected by people's beliefs about how much can be inferred from these types of data, as well as by their background in computer science.