Instant Messaging and Privacy
Sameer Patil
University of California, Irvine
(& IBM T. J. Watson Research Center)
Alfred Kobsa
University of California, Irvine
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Motivation
For effective and efficient collaboration and
coordination across distance, individuals need
as much information as possible about the
activities of other team members.
PRIVACY
AWARENESS
This need for awareness of other team
members may, however, be in conflict with
team members’ individual desires of privacy.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Motivation
Understanding current practices and
expectations may help build more privacysensitive frameworks for capturing,
maintaining, providing and seeking awareness
information.
Such systems will empower users to
seamlessly (and continually) find the right
balance between privacy and awareness using
socio-technical means.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Research Questions
Balancing Awareness and Privacy
– Is it a problem?
– How is it handled today?
– Can technology help?
We have used Instant Messaging (IM) as a
starting point for exploring these issues.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Importance of IM Privacy
• IM is being increasingly used in collaboration
• But indications of privacy concerns in several
studies
– Grinter and Palen (2002) “Instant Messaging in Teen Life”
– Begole et. al. (2002) “Work Rhythms: Analyzing
Visualizations of Awareness Histories of Distributed
Groups”
• Different responses:
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–
–
Organizational policies: still in the evolution stage
Privacy policies in IM systems: different in every system
Privacy settings in IM systems: different for every system
Personal strategies?? Unclear, vary widely?
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Semi-structured Interviews
• 7 Diverse Subjects
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Software Developer
Graphic Designer
Software Engineer
Doctoral Student
Technical Support Staff
Engineer
Undergraduate Student
• ~ 1 1/2 hour interviews
• 5 Males, 2 Females
• Mid 20s – Early 30s
– Except undergraduate
(20), and Engineer (> 55)
• 4 interviews conducted
at location where IM is
used the most
• No compensation
– Recorded and
transcribed
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Findings
Three common concerns
• Privacy from non-contacts
desire for very high degree of privacy from people not on
contact lists
• Privacy regarding availability
privacy from interruption or distraction from the current task
• Privacy regarding content
desire to prevent contents of IM communication from being
available to unintended third parties
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Privacy from Non-contacts
• Non-contacts:
– Strangers with unknown intentions
• Contacts:
– Trusted Acquaintances
– Lowered Privacy Barrier
• No public profile (exception undergraduate)
• Users are careful about who is added
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Privacy Regarding Availability
• Privacy from interruption or distraction
• Different expectations when working as
opposed to not working
• Plausible deniability [Nardi et. al. (2000)]
• “Home” extends into “work”
– but rarely vice versa!
• Different levels of availability for different
groups of people based on location and
(work) context
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Privacy Regarding Content
• Expectations similar to email
– for monitoring, sniffing, saving or sharing
• Informal policies for sharing
• Unease at the possibility of the other party
saving conversation
• Switch in medium for sensitive
conversations
– phone or face-to-face
• Concern for others watching screen contents
– minimize windows
– turn off monitor
– physical rearrangement
(if possible)
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Managing Impression
• An important driving force behind people’s
privacy in the context of IM seems to be the
desire to control how they appear to others.
– Available to different extent to different groups
– Desire to control saving/sharing of conversations
• Desired impression dependent on
relationship
– friend, family, peer, superior, stranger etc.
• Practices influenced by:
– defaults, personal preferences, prior knowledge &
experiences, group norms, organizational
policies, cultural expectations
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Managing Impression
The desire to manage one’s impression is
likely to strongly influence the point of balance
between demands for privacy and the consent
to disclose awareness information.
Privacy-sensitive collaboration system should
empower users to seamlessly manage their
“impression” as seen by various parties
involved.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Implications for Design
• Defaults
Provide defaults that are widely applicable across persons and
situations. These could include typical profiles (e.g.,
“manager”, “student”, “secretary”) with appropriate settings.
• Modifiable policies
Allow for user modifiability of default privacy policies, so that
users can cater to the current context.
• Visibility
Give users the opportunity to inspect various pieces of
information about themselves that can be viewed by others.
• Interaction
Design the interaction with users in such a way that specifying
or modifying status, settings or policies requires little or no
time and effort.
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Acknowledgments
• Heather Pulliam
• Becky Grinter
• Gloria Mark
• Paul Dourish
• Bonnie Nardi
• Max Teltzrow
• Cleidson de Souza
• Keri Carpenter
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ
Questions
Thursday, July 8, 2004
DIMACS Workshop, NJ