Usable Privacy: privacy settings, personal data sharing, data inference

Usable Privacy Basics

• Privacy is a kind of security;
  • Users want to protect their information.
  • Should have the right to understand what happens with their data.
  • Should have as much control as possible over how it is used.
• Privacy Policies;
  • Tell a user everything they need to know about how their data is collected, used, and shared.
  • Can be analyzed for usability.
• Privacy Controls
  • Should data be collected or not?
  • Who has permission to see it?
• Going forward
  • Privacy and security are part of the same issue.
  • Analyzing usability is done the same way with privacy.
  • Keep the user in mind first.

Privacy Policies and User Understanding

For user to control their privacy, they must understand privacy policies. Do they?

• What we know:
  • Most people don’t read privacy policies.
  • When people do read them, they don’t necessarily understand them.
• How to learn?
  • Read privacy policies.
  • Discover through other sources.
• Implications
  • Privacy policies are boring and hard to read
• Poor usability
  • They are really important.
  • Are there more usable ways to convey the information in a privacy policy?

Informed Consent for Privacy

• User understand what data is being collected and shared, and they consent to how it is used.
• Six components
  • Disclosure
  • Comprehension
  • Voluntariness
  • Competence
  • Agreement
  • Minimal distraction

5 Pitfalls of Privacy

• Understanding
  • Obscuring potential information flow.
  • Obscuring actual information flow.
• Action
  • Emphasizing configuration over action.
• Privacy management should be part of natural workflow
  • Lacking coarse-grained control.
• Have an obvious, top-level control to turn sharing on and off
  • Inhibiting established practice.
• What users expect from other experiences?
  • Let them have it here too.
• Mental models, conventions

Information Flow

• Types of information
• Kinds of observers
• Media through which info is conveyed
• Length of retention
• Potential for unintended disclosure
• Collection of metadata