Tumult and turmoil : privacy in an ambient world

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions. Our own interest in privacy predates this impending vision, but nonetheless holds a great deal of relevance there. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios with a view to eliciting their privacy concerns. The approach and findings will be discussed

Investigating privacy in an ambient world

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios with a view to eliciting their privacy concerns. The focus of this paper will be on the method used and preliminary findings will be discussed

Designing ambient intelligent scenarios to promote discussion of human values

Ambient technology evokes a near future in which humans will be surrounded by ‘always-on’, unobtrusive, interconnected intelligent objects. Always connected raises concern over human values. This study uses a privacy and trust framework to evaluate two Aml scenarios one health related and the other to the everyday task of shopping. Findings are discussed in relation to dimensions of trust, privacy and the impact upon human values

Using Ubicomp systems for exchanging health information : considering trust and privacy issues

Ambient Intelligence (AmI) and ubiquitous computing allow us to consider a future where computation is embedded into our daily social lives. This vision raises its own important questions and augments the need to understand how people will trust such systems and at the same time achieve and maintain privacy. As a result, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study of people’s attitudes to potential AmI scenarios. This research project investigates the concepts of trust and privacy issues specifically related to the exchange of health, financial, shopping and e-voting information when using AmI system. The method used in the study and findings related to the health scenario will be discussed in this paper and discussed in terms of motivation and social implications

Does Your Boss Know Where You Are? Predicting Adoption of LBS in the Workplace

To date there has been no tested model to predict uptake of LBS services in a real world setting. The leading theoretical contribution to our understanding of attitudes and behaviour towards LBS comes from Junglas & Spitzmüller (2005). They hypothesised that intentions to use LBS would be influenced by technology characteristics, task characteristics, personality type, perceived privacy, perceived usefulness, trust and perceived risk. We developed a questionnaire to test and refine their model with a UK employed population

Ubiquitous systems and the family: Thoughts about the networked home

Developments in ubiquitous and pervasive computing herald a future in which computation is embedded into our daily lives. Such a vision raises important questions about how people, especially families, will be able to engage with and trust such systems whilst maintaining privacy and individual boundaries. To begin to address such issues, we have recently conducted a wide reaching study eliciting trust, privacy and identity concerns about pervasive computing. Over three hundred UK citizens participated in 38 focus groups. The groups were shown Videotaped Activity Scenarios [11] depicting pervasive or ubiquitous computing applications in a number of contexts including shopping. The data raises a number of important issues from a family perspective in terms of access, control, responsibility, benefit and complexity. Also findings highlight the conflict between increased functionality and the subtle social interactions that sustain family bonds. We present a Pre-Concept Evaluation Tool (PRECET) for use in design and implementation of ubicomp systems

The impact of using location-based services with a behaviour-disordered child

In this paper we explore technologies that help parents locate their children. Parents regularly use mobile phones to stay in touch with their children, but recent developments in location-based tracking allow parents to assess the location of their child directly. Such location-based services offer new assurances, but also bring new privacy challenges. In order to explore these, we conducted a case study focussing on the way in which a family has used location-based technologies to keep track of a child with Aspergers Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. This novel research shows that Location-Based Services, although usually applied to lone-worker situations, can be effectively applied to other user groups. The parents of the child were interviewed at length, and the interview was analysed using qualitative methods. The findings are discussed and considered against a current predictive model of LBS use