"Innovative Technologies or Invasive Technologies?" exploring design challenges of privacy protection with smart home in Jordan

The growing adoption of smart devices has fuelled privacy concerns, and prior research has highlighted the privacy of bystanders: individuals who are subjected to the smart device use of others. Most of this research has focused on households in Western contexts (i.e., Europe and North America), but few studies have explored the design challenges of protecting bystanders, and even fewer have explored these in Muslim Arab Middle Eastern settings, such as Jordan. We conduct 44 interviews with users (i.e., families, domestic workers), local and international business leaders, and smart device designers to explore design challenges for privacy protection in the Jordanian context. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering contextual influences and power dynamics, localization and design guidelines, innovative technologies, awareness to design, and regulation. This paper concludes with recommendations for technical, social, business, and legal interventions to improve data protection design of smart devices in Jordan

Fair, Equitable, and Just: A Socio-technical Approach to Online Safety

Socio-technical systems have been revolutionary in reshaping how people maintain relationships, learn about new opportunities, engage in meaningful discourse, and even express grief and frustrations. At the same time, these systems have been central in the proliferation of harmful behaviors online as internet users are confronted with serious and pervasive threats at alarming rates. Although researchers and companies have attempted to develop tools to mitigate threats, the perception of dominant (often Western) frameworks as the standard for the implementation of safety mechanisms fails to account for imbalances, inequalities, and injustices in non-Western civilizations like the Caribbean. Therefore, in this dissertation I adopt a holistic approach to online safety that acknowledges the complexities of harms for understudied populations specifically focusing on the Caribbean. In this dissertation, I conduct three studies that take steps towards (1) filling in the gap of missing empirical understanding around users’ perceptions of safety threats and how that is associated with their intentions to engage with supportive countermeasures, (2) understanding the gaps in current approaches to justice, and (3) developing an understanding towards the development of equitable and inclusive countermeasures. In the first study, I conduct a region-wide survey which reveals Caribbean citizens experience high rates of exposure to online threats. Moreover, I show that by conceptually defining protective behaviors based on the threats that they address, it exposes how the perceptions of threats influences the adoption of online safety countermeasures while uncovering distinctions in perceptions depending on the type of harm. The second study utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach to understand the state of legislative protections. Through a reflective legislative and media analysis, the study uncovered major discrepancies in the region’s approach towards justice in online spaces. Lastly, the final study incorporates the findings of these works by conducting an online experiment to test the design of justice-oriented safety countermeasures. The results provide support for the development of countermeasures that people perceive to be fair, equitable, and just

Modern Socio-Technical Perspectives on Privacy

This open access book provides researchers and professionals with a foundational understanding of online privacy as well as insight into the socio-technical privacy issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems, covering several modern topics (e.g., privacy in social media, IoT) and underexplored areas (e.g., privacy accessibility, privacy for vulnerable populations, cross-cultural privacy). The book is structured in four parts, which follow after an introduction to privacy on both a technical and social level: Privacy Theory and Methods covers a range of theoretical lenses through which one can view the concept of privacy. The chapters in this part relate to modern privacy phenomena, thus emphasizing its relevance to our digital, networked lives. Next, Domains covers a number of areas in which privacy concerns and implications are particularly salient, including among others social media, healthcare, smart cities, wearable IT, and trackers. The Audiences section then highlights audiences that have traditionally been ignored when creating privacy-preserving experiences: people from other (non-Western) cultures, people with accessibility needs, adolescents, and people who are underrepresented in terms of their race, class, gender or sexual identity, religion or some combination. Finally, the chapters in Moving Forward outline approaches to privacy that move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions, explore ethical considerations, and describe the regulatory landscape that governs privacy through laws and policies. Perhaps even more so than the other chapters in this book, these chapters are forward-looking by using current personalized, ethical and legal approaches as a starting point for re-conceptualizations of privacy to serve the modern technological landscape. The book’s primary goal is to inform IT students, researchers, and professionals about both the fundamentals of online privacy and the issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems. Lecturers or teacherscan assign (parts of) the book for a “professional issues” course. IT professionals may select chapters covering domains and audiences relevant to their field of work, as well as the Moving Forward chapters that cover ethical and legal aspects. Academicswho are interested in studying privacy or privacy-related topics will find a broad introduction in both technical and social aspects

Modern Socio-Technical Perspectives on Privacy

This open access book provides researchers and professionals with a foundational understanding of online privacy as well as insight into the socio-technical privacy issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems, covering several modern topics (e.g., privacy in social media, IoT) and underexplored areas (e.g., privacy accessibility, privacy for vulnerable populations, cross-cultural privacy). The book is structured in four parts, which follow after an introduction to privacy on both a technical and social level: Privacy Theory and Methods covers a range of theoretical lenses through which one can view the concept of privacy. The chapters in this part relate to modern privacy phenomena, thus emphasizing its relevance to our digital, networked lives. Next, Domains covers a number of areas in which privacy concerns and implications are particularly salient, including among others social media, healthcare, smart cities, wearable IT, and trackers. The Audiences section then highlights audiences that have traditionally been ignored when creating privacy-preserving experiences: people from other (non-Western) cultures, people with accessibility needs, adolescents, and people who are underrepresented in terms of their race, class, gender or sexual identity, religion or some combination. Finally, the chapters in Moving Forward outline approaches to privacy that move beyond one-size-fits-all solutions, explore ethical considerations, and describe the regulatory landscape that governs privacy through laws and policies. Perhaps even more so than the other chapters in this book, these chapters are forward-looking by using current personalized, ethical and legal approaches as a starting point for re-conceptualizations of privacy to serve the modern technological landscape. The book’s primary goal is to inform IT students, researchers, and professionals about both the fundamentals of online privacy and the issues that are most pertinent to modern information systems. Lecturers or teacherscan assign (parts of) the book for a “professional issues” course. IT professionals may select chapters covering domains and audiences relevant to their field of work, as well as the Moving Forward chapters that cover ethical and legal aspects. Academicswho are interested in studying privacy or privacy-related topics will find a broad introduction in both technical and social aspects