Summary

20090506_fidis_D3.12 final 1.0.od

Summary

Usability is an important factor influencing the acceptance of technologyrelated products and subsequently the decision process to use or buy them. For this reason usability has been of interest in market research for many years. However, in the context of user-controlled Identity Management Systems (IMS) hardly any comparative usability studies have been published. This document gives an overview of established evaluation methods and criteria for usability and analyses which methods and criteria are suited for user controlled IMS. The selected methods and criteria are applied to twelve IMS in six functional classes. These classes include user controlled identifier management, policy management, form filling, context monitoring and history management. Nine of these IMS are further analysed in depth and the results of the tests are published in this report

Summary

Deliverable 7.2 represents a genuine attempt to crystallise the multi-disciplinary nature of the FIDIS Network of Excellence in a document assessing the many facets of profiling, with contributions coming from across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Profiling is a powerful, critical and worrying technology because it is probably the only way that massive volumes of data about individual and group behaviour can be mined, whether for nefarious or benign purposes. Ever larger volumes of data have been the holy grail of generations of social scientists, medical researchers and technologists, and with profiling alongside new data-gathering technologies such data is available with the means to mine it for all its value. This deliverable examines how different approaches to profiling are taken, reviewing along the way some of the different technology contexts in which it can be used. Though matters of privacy and security loom behind every corner, the main focus of this deliverable is not on such issues. Subsequent deliverables will move into this. Clearly, with its multiple applications in marketing, law enforcement and surveillance, e-medicine and e-health- to name just some, there exist currently many avenues along which profiling might progress, but unless the consumers and citizens of today and tomorrow have mor