Results of the User Survey about Privacy and Spontaneous Collaboration
Markus Endler, Fernando Ney
and Vagner Sacramento
September 2005
Goal
The goal of this survey was
to identify the main envisaged benefits and privacy concerns that end-users
have in the use of context-aware applications for collaboration and
communication. We aimed at assessing how much the privacy concerns would hinder
the large-scale adoption and use of applications that have the potential of
disclosing a person’s context information, in particular, his/her location. The
survey was made in October/November 2004.
Methodology
The survey was made through
a questionnaire, which was filled out on paper or through a Web-page. In the
first case, usually there was also a nearby person to give some required explanations. However, these persons were
instructed to be careful when explaining the questionnaire, in order to avoid
giving any implicit suggestions to the polled person. Both a Portuguese and an
English version of the questionnaire was made available.
Since there was no concrete
context-aware software and hardware available, the questionnaire started with
the description of a hypothetical infrastructure that would perform a
transparent and automatic collection of context data from a user’s device and
make this data available for context-sensitive applications, thus enabling the
deployment of also hypothetical context-aware applications.
Besides the common
questions to classify the polled person according to his/her age, activity, and
interest/familiarity with IT, the questionnaire had 8 questions divided into
two groups. In the first group, two questions asked about envisaged usage and
benefits of context-aware collaboration. In a second group, 6 questions
addressed privacy and anonymity requirements. Of the eight questions, six were
multiple-choice questions and the remaining two were essay questions.
Characterization of the poll set
The questionnaire was
filled out by 120 people, most of them were undergraduate and graduate computer
science students and faculty. But there was also a significantly large group of
users outside this group, including family members, co-workers, and friends of
students and faculty. Some few responders were also non-Brazilian. In the
following we present the exact percentages.
According to the Age:
·
10-17 years:
7,9 %
·
18-25 years: 29,7 %
·
26-35 years: 48,5 %
·
36-45 years: 12,9 %
·
over 46 years
0,9 %
According to Activity:
·
Student: 46,5 %
·
Lecturer 7,9
%
·
Other 41,6 %
According to Area of Studies/Activity:
·
Computer Science: 65,3 %
·
Natural Sciences: 5,9 %
·
Humanities: 6,9 %
·
Social Sciences: 1,9 %
·
Health Sciences:
3,9 %
·
Others: 5,9 %
According to interest in Information/Communication Technology?:
·
Interested:
78,2 %
·
Not interested: 1,9
%
·
Just as a user: 15,8 %
Results
In this section we first
present the results of the multiple-choice questions, and later the answers
given to the two essay questions Q2 and Q8.
Q1: Which types of applications using such technology would you use:
·
on-line games: 31,6 %
·
for asynchronous communication
(e.g. Email): 78,2 %
·
for synchronous communication
(e.g. chat, Instant Messenger): 63,3 %
·
for navigation with a map and
the tracking of your current location on the map: 65,3 %
·
for finding people: discovery
of nearby people with similar profile or interests: 35,6 %
·
Others: 6,9 %
Q3: If you had access to applications based on such technology, would you:
·
use it without any concern 17,8 %
·
try to get more information
about which kind of data is being monitored 63,4 %
·
check the options to
selectively disable monitoring of some dada 45,5
%
·
not use such software 16,8 %
·
be seriously concerned about
privacy isses related to the monitoring of such data 26,7 %
Q4: Which people would you allow to access your context data?
·
only people you know (friends,
colleagues, relatives) 74,3 %
·
only people with similar
profile or interest 19,8 %
·
any member of the community
which has been authenticated 20,8 %
·
any (authenticated) user 20,8 %
·
your real identity, or 36,6 %
·
a nickname 64,3 %
Q6: If any other person were requesting access to your context data, what would you expect:
·
to be immediately notified
about this event (even if this disturbs you current activity) 29,7 %
·
to be asked if you want to
allow or block the access 66,3
%
·
to be able to check at any
moment (on a log or database) who requested the data,
when,
and through which application 57,4
%
·
would not be interested in
knowing about the access request 2,9 %
·
only would be interested in
knowing about the access request if it
occurred frequently
(or
periodically) 2,9
%
Q7: Which kind of privacy control mechanisms would like the technology to have:
·
where you would explicitly
define which access is allowed, and by default any access
would
be disallowed 76,2 %
·
where you would explicitly
define which kind of access is not
allowed (e.g. which data,
by
which groups of people), and by default any access would be allowed 20,8
%
·
where there is an automatic
learning process (of your privacy profile), based on
your
previous actions 14,8 %
As expected, only a small
fraction of people answered the essay questions.
In the following we present
the number of answers (and percentages) in each group of strongly related
statements, for each of the essay
questions.
Question Q2 was
answered by 79 people (65,8%)
Q2: For which tasks/activities of your daily life do you think such technology and applications could be helpful? For example, building groups of students for joint studies, etc. Please give examples:
Work (total) 39 (49,36% of
79)
Work and study groups 24
Exchange
of information 7
Calender sharing 2
Document co-edition 2
Mobile technical support 2
Technological prospection 1
Polls 1
Communication (total) 18
(22,78%)
Any 15
Synchronous 1
Knowledge sharing/discussion 2
Finding People (total) 40
(50,63%)
General ly 4
Friends 10
Family
members 6
Other 2
Group
building 6
People
with similar interests 13
Information Access (total) 3 (3,78%)
Meteorological information 1
Real-time information 2
Guides and Navigation (total) 9 (11,39%)
Generally 3
Car trip 4
Find nearby services 2
Commerce/Business (total) 5 (6,39%)
Find discounts/promotions 3
Shopping 2
News 4 (5,06%)
Discover/become to know people 3 (3,78%)
Entertainment 3 (3,78%)
Personal
security 2
Trips (in general) 1
Question Q8 was
answered by 48 people (40% of 120)
Q8: Which specific and access control and
privacy mechanisms would you expect to be offered by the technology? Please
explain:
User authentication (total) 18 (37,50% of 48)
Not further specified 5
Through password 12
Biometric 2
Data cryptography (total) 7
(14,58%)
Control/Grant Access (total) 48
(100%)
Not further specified 6
Only to certain people 13
Only at specific periods of time 4
Ability to specify Access Rules 7
System infers new rules automatically 1
Availability of default rules 2
Ability to select the disclosed data 8
Be informed about access request 7
Request
explicit authorization at each access 4
Other
Data should be stored locally 3
Data should be readable to user (?) 1
Evaluation
From the results of our survey we identified the following trends (with the
corresponding percentages of votes):
·
a cautious
attitude toward such technology prevails. For example, 45% would check the
options to selectively disable monitoring of some data, 26% are seriously
concerned about privacy issues. However, only 16% would refuse to the
technology;
·
users demand for
detailed information to about which context data is being monitored (63%);
·
since mutual
discovery and communication is mediated through a yet unfamiliar technology,
most users would like to use a nickname instead of their real identity (64%);
·
the majority of
users would only share their context data with people they know, such as
friends, colleagues, relatives, (74%);
·
concerning access
control users demand: that a priori all access be denied, and that they
need to explicitly define which access is allowed (76%),and 66% want to be
explicitly queried for permission at each access request;
·
concerning
traceability and notifications, most want to be able to check at any moment (at
a log) who requested the data, when and through which application (57%), and
some want to be immediately notified at each request (29%).
Conclusion
We are aware of the limited
expressiveness of this survey, which are mainly due to the following facts:
·
the
small number of queried people
·
most
people were from academia
·
the
well-known disadvantage of surveys via forms, when compared to live interviews
·
the
questions were based on the description of a
hypothetical infrastructure and applications, instead of experience gained with the use of a real
context-aware application
·
since
such context-aware applications are not commonplace, most users may have had
difficulties in imagining all good and bad implications of their use
·
the
language used in the questionnaire may not have been appropriate for persons
not working/studying in an IT-related area
Nevertheless, we think that the
results of our surveys gave us a first idea of the privacy concerns and needs
of users of ubiquitous and context-aware applications.
Questionnaire about Privacy and Spontaneous Collaboration
Survey made by Laboratory for Advanced Collaboration at PUC-Rio, Brazil
Remark: This data will be used exclusively for scientific purposes (no
commercial use).
Age: [ ] 10-17, [ ] 18-25,
[ ] 26-35, [
] 36-45, [ ] over 46 years
Activity: [ ]Student, [
]Lecturer [ ] Other
Area of Studies/Activity:
[ ]Computer Science, [
]Natural Sciences, [ ]Humanities, [ ] Social
Sciences [ ] Health Sciences [ ] Others
Are you interested in Information/Communication Technology?: [ ]yes,
[ ]no, [ ] just as a user
Consider
a technology (i.e. software) which supports the continuous monitoring of data
about the use of a mobile device (e.g. a cell phone, a PDA, or a notebook with
a wireless communication interface),
and which enables the development of context-aware
applications and services for spontaneous communication, information sharing
and collaboration among members of a community, such as friends, colleagues,
relatives, etc.
The monitored data would be of
three kind:
·
Data about the system: quality
of the wireless link, level of remaining energy, current base station or access
point (for WiFi), etc.
·
Data about the environment:
geographic location, surrounding noise, luminosity, image of a video câmera,
etc.
·
Data about the user:
preferences, interests, applications being executed on the device, and which
user commands have being triggered.
Q1: Which types of applications using such technology would you use:
[ ] on-line games
[ ] for asynchronous
communication (e.g. Email)
[ ] for synchronous
communication (e.g. chat, Instant Messenger)
[ ] for navigation with a
map and the continuous update of your current location on the map
[ ] for finding people:
discovery of nearby people with similar profile or interests
[ ] Others (Give
Examples):
Q2: For which tasks/activities of your daily life do you think such
technology and applications could be helpful? For example, building groups of students for joint studies, etc. Please give examples:
Q3: If you had access to applications based on such technology, would
you:
[ ] use it without any
concern
[ ] try to get more
information about which kind of data is being monitored
[ ] check the options to
selectively disable monitoring of some dada
[ ] not use such software
[ ] be seriously concerned
about privacy isses related to the monitoring of such data
continues on next page
Q4: Which people would you allow to access your context data?
[ ] only people you know
(friends, colleagues, relatives)
[ ] only people with
similar profile or interest
[ ] any member of the
community which has been authenticated
[ ] any (authenticated)
user
[ ] your real identity, or
[ ] a nickname
Q6: If any other person were requesting access to your context data, what
would you expect:
[ ] to be immediately notified
about this event (even if this disturbs you current activity)
[ ] to be asked if you
want to allow or block the access
[ ] to be able to check
at any moment (on a log or database) who requested the data,
when, and through which application
[ ] would not be
interested in knowing about the access request
[ ] only would be interested in knowing about
the access request if it occurred
frequently (or periodically)
Q7: Which kind of privacy control mechanisms would like the technology to
have:
[ ] Where you would
explicitly define which access is allowed, and by default any access
would be disallowed
[ ] Where you would
explicitly define which kind of access is not
allowed (e.g. which data,
by which groups of people), and by default any access would
be allowed
[ ] where there is an
automatic learning process (of your privacy profile), based on
your previous actions
Q8: Which specific and access control and privacy mechanisms would you
expect to be offered by the technology? Please explain:
Thank you for your answers!