Abstract
Smart home devices become increasingly popular as they allow to automate tedious tasks and often provide a wide variety of entertainment features. Yet, this increase in comfort comes at the cost of exposure to privacy risks as connected devices in smart homes capture most sensitive user data, including video, audio, and movement data of the inhabitants and guests. Smart home owners and bystanders typically have very limited control over these recordings. While few devices do provide physical artifacts to block individual sensors, deactivating recording and transmission capabilities typically requires powering devices off or disconnecting them from the network, typically rendering these smart home appliances useless. In response, we created ConnectivityControl, a framework that allows users to switch between four device connectivity levels: Offline, Access Point mode, Local Network mode, and Online. ConnectivityControl features a privacy label that depicts how those modes impact device features and privacy exposure. The label can be used to inform purchase decisions and to monitor devices across their lifetime. In this paper, we detail the system architecture and the interaction design and showcase ConnectivityControl’s implementation in the context of two common smart home systems: a smart camera and an environmental sensing unit. Finally, we discuss how ConnectivityControl and its labels can transform the way smart home users configure their systems to match individual privacy needs.
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Feger, S.S., Windl, M., Grootjen, J., Schmidt, A. (2023). ConnectivityControl: Providing Smart Home Users with Real Privacy Configuration Options. In: Spano, L.D., Schmidt, A., Santoro, C., Stumpf, S. (eds) End-User Development. IS-EUD 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13917. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34433-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-34433-6_11
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