organized by

www.pvnets.org

 

• Overview
  • E-Commerce
  • E-Government
  • Intelligent Interfaces
  • Mobile Systems
  • Multimedia
  • Security
  • Social Systems
• Aim and Scope
  • MCB
  • MAESTRO
  • TEVIS
  • HIGHERVIEW
  • SoRecSys
• Programme / PDFs
• Materials
• Feedback
  • Angela Sasse
  • John McCarthy
  • Philip Bonhard
  • Philip Inglesant
  • Hina Keval
  • Hendrik Knoche
  • Sven Laqua
  • Sam Osei-Agyemang
  • Jens Riegelsberg

Privacy Methodologies Workshop

Overview

Probably the most common research method for the study of privacy attitudes is the survey (e.g. Jupiter Research, 2002, Harris & Westin, 1998). Commonly, these surveys will question respondents on their general level of privacy concern and their desire for regulation or legislation (e.g. Jupiter, 2002; Pew Internet, 2001). They may also query users’ behaviour (Gideon et al., 2006), or segment respondents based on established methodologies (Westin-Harris). More recently, psychometrically derived measures of Internet or computer-based privacy attitudes (e.g. Buchanan et al., 2006; Malhotra, Kim and Agarwal, 2004) have been developed. Longitudinal studies are also being carried out into changing attitudes to privacy in the UK and elsewhere (Dutton and Helsper, 2007), finding increasing public sensitivity to these issues.

In terms of their design, existing methodologies for the study of privacy are limited in a number of respects (see Buchanan et al., 2006, Harper and Singleton, 2001), including the inclusion of leading questions, a reliance on attitude-based questions rather than behaviour-based queries, and a tendency to confuse privacy with related issues (e.g. spam, credit card fraud). Privacy research also suffers from a ‘measurement problem’, in that asking people about their privacy-related attitudes tends to lead to more privacy-enhancing responses. Worse, the very people most concerned about their privacy are those likely to refuse a request to complete surveys on the topic, leading to sample-based biases.

Aim and scope

The privacy methodologies workshop was designed to train participants in a variety of methodologies that confront the above challenges. Invited experts in the field of privacy discussed a diverse collection of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The experts addressed the following key questions:

• Why was a particular methodology chosen for a given context? What selection criteria were used? What were the advantages and disadvantages of the methodology?
• How was bias and priming avoided? Was there evidence of a ‘measurement problem’?
• How did the researcher ensure the sample was representative, avoiding sample-based biases?

Following experts’ talks, participants worked in small groups designing studies on scenario-based privacy problems such as mobile location tracking, social networking, used by young adults, elderly or children and families.

PROGRAMME

The workshop ran from 1pm on the 23rd March until 2pm on 24th March. The final programme was as follows:

23rd March
13.00	Arrivals, welcome Introduction [PDF] PVNets project overview [PDF] VOME project overview [PDF] EnCoRE project overview
13.30	Pam Briggs, University of Northumbria, Newcastle Using film in privacy research [PDF]
14.10	Alessandro Acquisti, Carnegie Mellon University The behavioral economics of privacy [PDF]
14.50	Coffee/tea break
15.20	Kirstie Ball, The Open University Using mixed methods to study data protection and privacy in the outsourced call centre [PDF]
16.00	Jean Camp, University of Indiana Exactly What Is it That You Will Never Admit? Challenges to User-Centered Research in Privacy [PDF]
16.40	Break out session
17.30	Plenary and report back
18.00	End of day 1

24th March
09.00	Orientation and overview
09.10	AJ Johnson, Ipsos MORI Privacy and Survey Methodology [PDF]
09.40	Ellen Helsper, Oxford Internet Institute Researching anonymity and the use of the internet amongst disadvantaged and vulnerable groups [PDF]
10.10	Coffee/tea break
10.40	George Danezis, Microsoft Research The technological foundations of Privacy [PDF]
11.10	Anne Adams, The Open University Privacy methods in context [PDF]
11.40	Break out session
12.30	Plenary and report back
13.00	Lunch
14:00	End of workshop

Workshop materials

Location tracking [docx] [rtf]

Peer-to-peer [docx] [rtf]

Security [docx] [rtf]

Surveillance [docx] [rtf]

Feedback

If you attended PMW 2009, please use our feedback form.

References

Buchanan, T., Paine, C., Joinson, A. and Reips, U-D (2006). Development of measures of online privacy concern and protection for use on the Internet. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 58, p.157-165.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113489544/abstract

Dutton, W. and Helsper, E.J. (2007). The Internet in Britain: 2007. Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford (Oxford, UK).
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/oxis/OxIS2007_Report.pdf

Gideon, J., Cranor, L., Egelman, S., Acquisti, A. (2006). Power strips, prophylactics, and privacy, oh my! Proc. Usable privacy and security, pp. 133-144.
http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups/2006/proceedings/p133_gideon.pdf

Harper, J., & Singleton, S. (2001). With a grain of salt: What consumer privacy surveys don't tell us.
http://www.cei.org/PDFs/with_a_grain_of_salt.pdf

Harris and Associates Inc. and Westin, A., (1998) E-commerce and privacy: What net users want. Privacy and American Business and Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP. Available online at http://www.pandan.org/ecommercesurvey.html

Jupiter Research (2002) Security and privacy data. Presentation to the FTC Consumer Information Security Workshop.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/security/020520leathern.pdf

Malhotra, N. K., Kim, S. S. and Agarwal, J. (2004) Internet users' Information privacy concerns (IUIPC): The construct, the scale and a causal model. Information Systems Research, 15, p.336-355.
http://infosys.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/4/336

Pew Internet and American Life Project (2001) Fox, S., Rainie, L. Horrigan, J. Lenhart, A., Spooner, T. and Carter, C. Trust and privacy online: Why Americans want to rewrite the rules. Available at http://www.pewinternet.org

Funding

Funded by EPSRC grant EP/G00260/1 with support from the ESRC and TSB.

 

VENUE

The workshop took place at room 153 in Birkbeck College, close to the UCL campus. Room 153 is in the Birkbeck main building, which is at the Bloomsbury campus. The entrance to the building is on Torrington Square.
How to get to Birkbeck:

[directions] [maps]

Wireless access

Your laptop will be scanned to verify that:

-it's operating system is adequately patched and that

-antivirus is installed

by the "Birkbeck-WAM" access point, before it will allow your laptop onto the network.

Please click "guest access" on registration and authentication screens.

Guest usernames and passwords will be provided on site.

[more]

ACCOMMODATION

We recommended booking at Tavistock hotel, which is close to the UCL campus. Single room rates are £65 per Night.
More information on bookings can be found here.