Background
Smart devices are increasingly finding their way into people’s homes, such as smart TVs, smart security cameras, smart thermostats, smart doorbells, etc.. People adopt them because they think it is fun, useful or just interesting to have. It appears however that people have too little awareness of the privacy and security risks. These risks relate to housemates, manufacturers, landlords, and hackers having access to the data collected by the devices and being able to actuate the device, possibly causing physical damage in home, or bullying and scaring people. News items have shown several instances of hackers gaining access to the camera of baby monitors, doorbell cameras and safety cameras and streaming footage online or talking and even shouting to people and small children through their microphone functions, suggesting that although these devices are rather new, hacking already successfully takes place and is harming people.
In several ways, your research can provide insights into how to make people more safety aware and perform more safe behaviors. You can for example study how to nudge people towards choosing domestic IoT devices that are designed to be relatively safe and by setting passwords and updating software on the devices. Ýou can use insights from the risk perception and warning literature and previous studies testing interventions in the IoT context to develop and test an effective intervention. You can also gain a better understanding into how and to what extent people consider the different privacy and security risks when deciding to purchase a smart device with survey studies, looking for entryways for improving decision making.
Research questions
1. How can we nudge people towards more safe use of domestic IoT?
2. How do people adopt and use domestic IoT that affects the privacy and security risks?
3. How can we increase self-efficacy with respect to safety behavior?
Type of research
The options are experimental, survey, or qualitative interviews depending on the research questions and preferences of the student.
Keywords
IoT, risk perception, risk behavior, privacy, security
Information
If you are interested in this topic, please contact Steven Watson via s.j.watson@utwente.nl.
Literature
Emami-Naeini, P., Dixon, H., Agarwal, Y., & Cranor, L. F. (2019). Exploring how privacy and security factor into IoT device purchase behavior. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300764
Lau, J., Zimmerman, B., & Schaub, F. (2018). Alexa, Are You Listening? Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274371
Laughery, K. R., & Wogalter, M. S. (2006). Designing Effective Warnings. Reviews of Human Factors and Ergonomics. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557234x0600200109