Privacy Concerns and Behaviors of People with Visual Impairments

Abstract

Various technologies have been developed to help make the world more accessible to visually impaired people, and recent advances in low-cost wearable and mobile computing are likely to drive even moreadvances. However, the unique privacy and security needs of visually impaired people remain largely unaddressed. We conducted an exploratory user study with 14 visually impaired participants to understand the techniques they currently use for protecting privacy, their remaining privacy concerns,and how new technologies may be able to help. The interviews explored privacy not only in the physical world (e.g., bystanders overhearing private conversations) and the online world (e.g., determining if a URL is legitimate), but also in the interface between the two (e.g. bystanders `shoulder-surfing' data from screens). The study revealed serious concerns that are not adequately solved by current technology, and suggested new directions for improving the privacy of this significant fraction of the population.