Addressing Adjacent Actor Privacy: Designing for Bystanders, Co-Users, and Surveilled Subjects of Smart Home Cameras

Abstract

Many consumer Internet Things (IoT) devices involve spatial sensors such as cameras and microphones. These affect the privacy of nearby people. A prime example is smart home security cameras. We present our work developing scenarios, use cases, and design proposals for addressing smart camera privacy. Preliminary findings from a concept evaluation with 11 participants is presented. The outcomes of this research through design project foreground the importance and challenges of designing to support the privacy of nearby users. We outline actionable design responses while also raising limitations of technology approaches alone to address these issues.