What is Sensitive About (Sensitive) Data? Characterizing Sensitivity and Intimacy with Google Assistant Users

Gomez Ortega, A.; Bourgeois, Jacky; Kortuem, G.W.

doi:10.1145/3544548.3581164

What is Sensitive About (Sensitive) Data? Characterizing Sensitivity and Intimacy with Google Assistant Users

Title

What is Sensitive About (Sensitive) Data? Characterizing Sensitivity and Intimacy with Google Assistant Users

Author

Gomez Ortega, A. (TU Delft Internet of Things)
Bourgeois, Jacky (TU Delft Internet of Things)
Kortuem, G.W. (TU Delft Internet of Things)

Date

2023

Abstract

Digital technologies have increasingly integrated into people's lives, continuously capturing their behavior through potentially sensitive data. In the context of voice assistants, there is a misalignment between experts, regulators, and users on whether and what data is 'sensitive', partly due to how data is presented to users; as single interactions. We investigate users' perspectives on the sensitivity and intimacy of their Google Assistant speech records, introduced comprehensively as single interactions, patterns, and inferences. We collect speech records through data donation and explore them in collaboration with 17 users during interviews based on predefined data-sharing scenarios. Our results indicate a tipping point in perceived sensitivity and intimacy as participants delve deeper into their data and the information derived from it. We propose a conceptualization of sensitivity and intimacy that accounts for the fuzzy nature of data and must disentangle from it. We discuss the implications of our findings and provide recommendations.

Subject

Intimate Data
Personal Data
Sensitive Data
Voice Assistants

To reference this document use:

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4dc40d4a-a481-4708-843e-7934b86266ba

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581164

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

ISBN

978-1-4503-9421-5

Source

CHI 2023 - Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems