An architecture for privacy-sensitive ubiquitous computing

TLDR

Privacy is a major criticism of ubiquitous computing and a key barrier to its long‑term success, yet developers currently lack tools to design privacy‑aware architectures. The authors introduce Confab, a toolkit designed to aid developers in building privacy‑sensitive ubiquitous computing applications. Confab’s design was informed by an analysis of privacy requirements from both end‑users and application developers. The toolkit provides a framework with customizable privacy mechanisms, including location‑privacy extensions, enabling developers and users to support a range of trust levels and privacy needs.

Abstract

Privacy is the most often-cited criticism of ubiquitous computing, and may be the greatest barrier to its long-term success. However, developers currently have little support in designing software architectures and in creating interactions that are effective in helping end-users manage their privacy. To address this problem, we present Confab, a toolkit for facilitating the development of privacy-sensitive ubiquitous computing applications. The requirements for Confab were gathered through an analysis of privacy needs for both end-users and application developers. Confab provides basic support for building ubiquitous computing applications, providing a framework as well as several customizable privacy mechanisms. Confab also comes with extensions for managing location privacy. Combined, these features allow application developers and end-users to support a spectrum of trust levels and privacy needs.