More than Meets the Eye: Understanding the Effect of Individual Objects on Perceived Visual Privacy

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Akcay, Mete Harun, Rao, Siddharth Prakash, Bakas, Alexandros, Atli, Buse Gul
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Akcay, Mete Harun
Rao, Siddharth Prakash
Bakas, Alexandros
Atli, Buse Gul
author_facet Akcay, Mete Harun
Rao, Siddharth Prakash
Bakas, Alexandros
Atli, Buse Gul
contents User-generated content, such as photos, comprises the majority of online media content and drives engagement due to the human ability to process visual information quickly. Consequently, many online platforms are designed for sharing visual content, with billions of photos posted daily. However, photos often reveal more than they intended through visible and contextual cues, leading to privacy risks. Previous studies typically treat privacy as a property of the entire image, overlooking individual objects that may carry varying privacy risks and influence how users perceive it. We address this gap with a mixed-methods study (n = 92) to understand how users evaluate the privacy of images containing multiple sensitive objects. Our results reveal mental models and nuanced patterns that uncover how granular details, such as photo-capturing context and copresence of other objects, affect privacy perceptions. These novel insights could enable personalized, context-aware privacy protection designs on social media and future technologies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_13051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle More than Meets the Eye: Understanding the Effect of Individual Objects on Perceived Visual Privacy
Akcay, Mete Harun
Rao, Siddharth Prakash
Bakas, Alexandros
Atli, Buse Gul
Human-Computer Interaction
User-generated content, such as photos, comprises the majority of online media content and drives engagement due to the human ability to process visual information quickly. Consequently, many online platforms are designed for sharing visual content, with billions of photos posted daily. However, photos often reveal more than they intended through visible and contextual cues, leading to privacy risks. Previous studies typically treat privacy as a property of the entire image, overlooking individual objects that may carry varying privacy risks and influence how users perceive it. We address this gap with a mixed-methods study (n = 92) to understand how users evaluate the privacy of images containing multiple sensitive objects. Our results reveal mental models and nuanced patterns that uncover how granular details, such as photo-capturing context and copresence of other objects, affect privacy perceptions. These novel insights could enable personalized, context-aware privacy protection designs on social media and future technologies.
title More than Meets the Eye: Understanding the Effect of Individual Objects on Perceived Visual Privacy
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.13051