PriPref broadcaster

Abstract

While privacy is often treated as an information centric issue, privacy issues in ubiquitous and mobile computing also encompass physical or territorial aspects, i.e., the right to be left alone or undisturbed. Disturbances that affect privacy often stem from persons nearby and their mobile devices, e.g., ringing phones, loud phone calls, or sounds of mobile games. We propose PriPref Broadcaster, a smartphone-based approach for communicating personal privacy preferences to persons in physical proximity. Our approach further supports automatic adaptation of mobile device settings based on the dominating preferences in the current environment. Results from a usability study and a five-day field trial with 28 participants show that broadcasting privacy preferences is perceived as meaningful and has the potential to support privacy signaling in many everyday situations.