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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kurze, Albrecht, Becker, Alexa
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06960
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author Kurze, Albrecht
Becker, Alexa
author_facet Kurze, Albrecht
Becker, Alexa
contents More and more smart devices enter our homes. Often these devices come with a variety of sensors, mostly simple sensors, e.g., for light, temperature, humidity or motion. And they all collect data. While it is data of the home environment it is also data of domestic life in the home. Thus it is data of the people and by the people in the home capturing their presence, arrival and departure, typical domestic activities, bad habits, health status etc. Based on previous as well as ongoing research we know that people are actually able to make sense of simple sensor data and that they will make use of it for their own purposes. Simple sensors, when critically reflected, are often only "simple" in a technical sense. The unreflected design and use of these sensors can easily lead to unintended implications, i.e. for privacy. However, it may not even need a Big Brother or data experts or AI to make the data of these sensors sensitive, e.g., if used for lateral surveillance within families. Often unintended but wicked implications emerge despite good intentions, such as improving efficiency or energy saving through collecting sensor data. Thus sensor data from the home is actually data of/by/for the people in the home. First, we explain how this might have relevance across scales of community of people - not only for the domain of the home but also in broader meaning. Second, we relate our previous as well as ongoing research in the domain of smart homes to this topic.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_06960
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Simplications: Why and how we should rethink data of/by/for the people in smart homes and its privacy implications
Kurze, Albrecht
Becker, Alexa
Human-Computer Interaction
More and more smart devices enter our homes. Often these devices come with a variety of sensors, mostly simple sensors, e.g., for light, temperature, humidity or motion. And they all collect data. While it is data of the home environment it is also data of domestic life in the home. Thus it is data of the people and by the people in the home capturing their presence, arrival and departure, typical domestic activities, bad habits, health status etc. Based on previous as well as ongoing research we know that people are actually able to make sense of simple sensor data and that they will make use of it for their own purposes. Simple sensors, when critically reflected, are often only "simple" in a technical sense. The unreflected design and use of these sensors can easily lead to unintended implications, i.e. for privacy. However, it may not even need a Big Brother or data experts or AI to make the data of these sensors sensitive, e.g., if used for lateral surveillance within families. Often unintended but wicked implications emerge despite good intentions, such as improving efficiency or energy saving through collecting sensor data. Thus sensor data from the home is actually data of/by/for the people in the home. First, we explain how this might have relevance across scales of community of people - not only for the domain of the home but also in broader meaning. Second, we relate our previous as well as ongoing research in the domain of smart homes to this topic.
title Simplications: Why and how we should rethink data of/by/for the people in smart homes and its privacy implications
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.06960