Sensible Privacy

Abstract

Privacy is a concept with real life ties and implications. Privacy infringement has the potential to lead to serious consequences for the stakeholders involved, hence researchers and organisations have developed various privacy enhancing techniques and tools. However, there is no solution that fits all, and there are instances where privacy solutions could be misused, for example to hide nefarious activities. Therefore, it is important to provide suitable measures and to make necessary design tradeoffs in order to avoid such misuse. This short paper aims to make a case for the need of careful consideration when designing a privacy solution, such that the design effectively addresses the user requirements while at the same time minimises the risk of inadvertently assisting potential offenders. In other words, this paper strives to promote Òsensible privacyÓ design, which deals with the complex challenges in balancing privacy, usability and accountability. We illustrate this idea through a case study involving the design of privacy solutions for domestic violence survivors. This is the main contribution of the paper. The case study presents specific user requirements and operating conditions, which coupled with the attacker model, provide a complex yet interesting scenario to explore. One example of our solutions is described in detail to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach.

Stories from Survivors

“…Some researchers have proposed specific technology interventions to help counter the challenges and threats faced by survivors of IPA. For example, Arief et al [5] suggest that when designing technology with the primary goal of supporting survivors, designers should take into account usability and the survivors' privacy, as well as the possibility that abusers will appropriate such technologies. Using these suggestions, they propose an app specially designed to delete evidence of the survivor's help-seeking activities, while preserving evidence of abusers' misuse of the survivors' devices.…”

‘I feel like we’re really behind the game’: perspectives of the United Kingdom’s intimate partner violence support sector on the rise of technology-facilitated abuse

“…Scholars such as Woodlock (2017), Douglas et al (2019), Matthews et al (2017), and Freed et al (2017) studied the role and experiences the misuse of technologies for IPV victims/survivors creates. While digital systems offer opportunities to assist IPV victims/survivors (Arief et al, 2014;Burdon and Douglas, 2017;Rodríguez-Rodríguez et al, 2020) and to challenge perpetrator's behaviours (Bellini et al, 2020), the exploitation of technologies to harm, monitor, and dominate victims/survivors can be positioned within Kelly's conceptualisation (1988) of a 'continuum of violence' (Harris, 2020). Thus, offline and online abuse forms closely intersect and overlap with other coercive and controlling behaviours (Stark, 2007;2016;Stark and Hester, 2018).…”

Survivor-Centered Transformative Justice: An Approach to Designing Alongside Domestic Violence Stakeholders in US Muslim Communities

“…Gender-based violence has been studied broadly within HCI [85]. Specifically, domestic violence (DV) or Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) has been addressed by multiple scholars from the perspectives of: the role of technology in the US IPV ecosystem [47], DV service provision and prevention [17][18][19]85], technology exploitation for abuse [45,46,76,111], agency practices addressing DV [94], designing within patriarchal systems [109], for survivors' security, privacy, and safety [13,35,58,112], and life-repair after DV [30]. Scholars have shown their concern around conventional technological and non-technological approaches that tend to burden the survivor with coping and healing while excluding abusers from the process [18,76].…”