MAKING SENSE OF PRIVACY !
IN SOCIAL NETWORK SERVICES!
User Perspectives
T-110.5220
Information Security and Usability April 11 2013
Airi Lampinen
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology
& University of Helsinki, social psychology
(NETWORKED) PRIVACY
• Organizational
• Interpersonal (interactional/social)
How are different types of privacy connected?
What type of privacy regulation do SNSs support?
Where do SNSs direct their users’ attention?
STARTING POINT
Four forces that regulate social systems (Lessig 2006):
• Market
• Law
• Social norms
• Code (/architecture)
SELF-PRESENTATION (Goffman)
Presenting oneself to others - and to oneself
Cues given and cues given off
“What kind of a person am I and how am I to be treated?”
INTERPERSONAL BOUNDARY REGULATION
Altman (1975; 1977)
“Privacy as a process of interpersonal boundary control that paces and controls interaction”
“An interpersonal boundary process by which an
individual or a group regulates interaction with others.
Stakes: Social interaction, social relationships, self-identity
BOUNDARY REGULATION IN PHYSICAL SPACES
Picture credit: TenSafeFrogs
BOUNDARY REGULATION !
IN THE NETWORKED WORLD
Palen & Dourish (2003)
DISCLOSURE: Privacy and publicness IDENTITY: Self and others
TEMPORALITY: Past, present, future
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NETWORKED CONTEXT (boyd, 2008)
1. Persistence 2. Replicability 3. Scalability 4. Searchability
See also “THE ETERNAL MEMORY”
(Viktor Mayer-Schonberger: Delete: The Virtue of
Forgetting in the Digital Age)
SHARING WITH MULTIPLE GROUPS
SHARING ON BEHALF OF OTHERS
SHARING VIA AUTOMATION (VS MANUALLY)
HOW DO WE REGULATE BOUNDARIES?
BOUNDARY REGULATION IS NOT JUST…
…updating “privacy settings”
…choosing from the options predetermined in the UI
TYPOLOGY OF INTERPERSONAL !
BOUNDARY REGULATION PRACTICES
1. Individual & collaborative 2. Preventive & corrective 3. Behavioral & mental
Discuss: What do you think are the pros and cons of different
practices?
PHOTO CREDIT: NCINDC ON FLICKR"
BOUNDARY REGULATION IS COOPERATIVE (1) Supporting others, face
work & rule of
considerateness (2) Negotiating shared
codes of conduct,
making joint efforts
Negotiating Access to/within
Domestic Spaces via Couchsurfing!
BOUNDARY REGULATION AS A GROUP:
Delegation & cooperation"
Photo credit: heschong
