End-User Privacy Management in Ubiquitous Computing

Allowing end-users to manage their privacy in ubiquitous computing environments

Pre-Information Age, people led embodied lives. Personal information (PI) was easily kept private because its collection by third parties was slow and difficult. Established social methods for maintaining privacy were at everyone's disposal. Today, people lead online lives. Online PI is harder to keep private because its collection by third parties is fast and easy. Tomorrow, people's embodied and online lives may be indistinguishable. The powers of storage, search, and sort that simplify third-party collection of online PI will be brought to bear on people's embodied lives, leaving ever less room for privacy.

What will be tomorrow's social and technical tools for the management of personal privacy? How can we transform the inherent complexity of privacy in ubicomp into a conceptual model simple enough for common internalization? What interaction tools and techniques will people use to manage privacy in ubicomp? These and other questions are motivating research into the development of a user conceptual model and interaction techniques for managing privacy in ubicomp.

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