The privacy aware transmission highway framework

Abstract

Handling users' privacy in ubiquitous systems is a difficult challenge. Many frameworks have been proposed to analyse the problems of privacy in a world with computers resembling typewriters. However, as the world evolves towards a proliferation of invisible computers, we see that the classical approaches are insufficient. Designers and developers need tools to help them better understand how to mitigate privacy threats in such complex systems. In our approach, the privacy aware transmission highway (PATH) framework, we address privacy threats originated as the result of the interaction between users and ubiquitous computing systems. We analyse the reasons why these privacy threats occur and propose a method to decompose the complex and abstract problem of privacy into more manageable sub-problems. An evaluation has been conducted with experts and students to validate the applicability of the framework.

Mitigating the Impact on Users’ Privacy Caused by over Specifications in the Design of IoT Applications

“…As Shmueli et al explain, overspecifications appear as the result of a cognitive bias, and, “findings about the influence of cognitive biases on behavior and decisions can be generalized from students to experts” [17] as, “Both students and managers are likely to have the similar cognitive limitations, so both groups are likely to exhibit bounded rationality in decision-making” [57]. This is also in line with our findings during the evaluation of the PATH framework with experts [19,20], expert system developers are also susceptible to get biased by overspecifications.…”

“…After the introduction, the students were split in two groups of approximately the same size: A and B on the first session and C and D on the second session (Table 1). The groups were requested to perform the same task, based on the description of the problem (Section 3.1) and elaborate a list of design alternatives after following the proposed methods to address privacy issues: QOC-FC [35] and PATH [19]. A and B were requested to use the QOC-FC method and C and D the PATH method, so that intergroup consistency could be validated.…”

“…As overspecification is a trap that system developers often fall into, it is important to provide them with methods and guidelines that can help them avoid it. In previous papers we reported on the Privacy Aware Transmission Highway (PATH) framework [19], which is supposed to help developers identify privacy challenges in a system-to-be to avoid overspecification by making clear what privacy related design decisions are really mandated by the users’ privacy requirements. The PATH framework is an iterative process framework consisting of four phases: goal-oriented analysis, elaboration of the privacy related, evaluation or estimation of privacy impact, and iteration.…”

“…The other phases are focused on privacy impact estimation and selection of design alternatives. An overview of PATH framework is presented in Section 3.2, whereas a much more detailed description is available in our previous publication [19] The guidelines of the PATH framework have been validated with experts in ubiquitous computing systems and HCI practitioners [20]. Unfortunately, most software development projects do not have privacy experts in their teams.…”