Skip to main content

Towards an Engineering Model of Privacy-Related Decisions

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Privacy and Identity Management for the Future Internet in the Age of Globalisation (Privacy and Identity 2014)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((Tutorials,volume 457))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 945 Accesses

Abstract

People make numerous decisions that affect their own or others’ privacy, including the decisions to engage in certain activities, to reveal and share information or to allow access to information. These decisions depend on properties of the information to be revealed, the situation in which the decision is made, the possible recipients of the information, and characteristics of the individual person. System design should ideally protect users from unwanted consequences by allowing them to make informed decisions, at times blocking users’ ability to perform certain actions (e.g., when the user is a minor). The development of alerting and blocking mechanisms should be based on predictive models of user behavior, similar to engineering models in other domains. These models can be used to evaluate different design alternatives and to assess the required system specifications. Predictive models of privacy decisions will have to combine elements from normative decision making and from behavioral, descriptive research on decision making. Some major issues in the development and validation of such models are presented.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Acquisti, A., Grossklags, J.: Privacy and rationality in individual decision making. IEEE Secur. Priv. 3(1), 26–33 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics): Guide for the verification and validation of computational fluid dynamics simulations, AIAA-G-077-1998. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Reston, VA (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Asher, N., Meyer, J.: The triad of risk related behaviors. Unpublished Manuscript (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Asher, N., Meyer, J., Parmet, Y., Möller, S., Englert, R.: An experimental microworld for evaluating the tradeoffs between usability and security. Usable Security Experiment Reports (USER) Workshop in the Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), Redmond, WA, USA, 14–16 July 2010

    Google Scholar 

  • Botzer, A., Meyer, J., Bak, P., Parmet, Y.: Cue threshold settings for binary categorization decision. J. Exp. Psychol. Appl. 16, 1–15 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Box, G.E.P., Draper, N.R.: Empirical Model Building and Response Surfaces. Wiley, New York (1987)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Gurses, S.: Privacy and security: Can you engineer privacy? Commun. ACM 57(8), 20–23 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, J., Wiczorek, R., GĂĽnzler, T.: Measures of reliance and compliance in aided visual scanning. Hum. Factors 56(5), 840–849 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Möller, S., Ben-Asher, N., Engelbrecht, K.-P., Englert, R., Meyer, J.: Modeling the behavior of users who are confronted with security mechanisms. Comput. Secur. 30(4), 242–256 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spiekerman, S., Cranor, L.F.: Engineering privacy. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 35(1), 67–82 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vicente, K.: Cognitive Work Analysis. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  • Westin, A.: Privacy and Freedom. Atheneum, New York (1967)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joachim Meyer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

About this paper

Cite this paper

Meyer, J. (2015). Towards an Engineering Model of Privacy-Related Decisions. In: Camenisch, J., Fischer-HĂĽbner, S., Hansen, M. (eds) Privacy and Identity Management for the Future Internet in the Age of Globalisation. Privacy and Identity 2014. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 457. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18621-4_2

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18621-4_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-18620-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-18621-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics