TY - GEN
T1 - “Some might freak out” - What if your dog's activity tracker were to have a data breach?
AU - van der Linden, Dirk
AU - Williams, Emma
AU - Hadar, Irit
AU - Zamansky, Anna
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM.
PY - 2019/11/12
Y1 - 2019/11/12
N2 - Activity trackers for dogs are increasingly popular, having the potential to improve pets' welfare and providing a 'digital voice' for expressing their needs. ACI research has so far mainly focused on their impact on the pet-human bond. However, also privacy considerations play an important role as they may pose significant barriers towards their wider adoption. We report on a mixed-method study (N=61) investigating what, if any, privacy concerns dog owners hold towards the data captured by their dog's device. We elicited detailed reflections by participants towards the consequences for themselves and others of a hypothetical data breach leaking their dog's data. In addition, we captured several potential indicators for the perception of consequences: trust, perceived transparency, risk, benefit, and self-assessed knowledge of dog behavior (and thus its data). Statistical analysis of the findings indicated that perceived consequences were moderately correlated with trust and perceived benefit of use for society as a whole. A thematic analysis revealed that participants either did not see any consequences, saw consequences only when reasoning about others, or saw consequences to their own or dog's safety, rather than their privacy. We discuss why these findings are worrying in light of the information asymmetry between consumer and service provider, setting out an argument why dog owners should care more about dog activity data and its privacy implications due to the data's ability to reveal potentially sensitive data about themselves as well as their caregiving.
AB - Activity trackers for dogs are increasingly popular, having the potential to improve pets' welfare and providing a 'digital voice' for expressing their needs. ACI research has so far mainly focused on their impact on the pet-human bond. However, also privacy considerations play an important role as they may pose significant barriers towards their wider adoption. We report on a mixed-method study (N=61) investigating what, if any, privacy concerns dog owners hold towards the data captured by their dog's device. We elicited detailed reflections by participants towards the consequences for themselves and others of a hypothetical data breach leaking their dog's data. In addition, we captured several potential indicators for the perception of consequences: trust, perceived transparency, risk, benefit, and self-assessed knowledge of dog behavior (and thus its data). Statistical analysis of the findings indicated that perceived consequences were moderately correlated with trust and perceived benefit of use for society as a whole. A thematic analysis revealed that participants either did not see any consequences, saw consequences only when reasoning about others, or saw consequences to their own or dog's safety, rather than their privacy. We discuss why these findings are worrying in light of the information asymmetry between consumer and service provider, setting out an argument why dog owners should care more about dog activity data and its privacy implications due to the data's ability to reveal potentially sensitive data about themselves as well as their caregiving.
KW - ACI
KW - Dog
KW - Pet
KW - Privacy
KW - Wearables
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85078397529&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3371049.3371057
DO - https://doi.org/10.1145/3371049.3371057
M3 - Conference contribution
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
BT - ACI 2019 - 6th International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction
T2 - 6th International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction: Common Denominator, ACI 2019
Y2 - 12 November 2019 through 14 November 2019
ER -