The Influence of Friends and Experts on Privacy Decision Making in IoT Scenarios

Pardis Emami-Naeini, Martin Degeling*, Lujo Bauer, Lorrie Cranor, Mohammad Reza Haghighat†, Richard Chow†, Heather Patterson†

* †

Alice in Wonderland…

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Data: temperatureRetention: 1 dayPurpose: adjust room’s temperature

Fewer than 15% of privacy expertsallowed

More than 65% of your friends allowed

Data: fingerprintRetention: foreverPurpose: authentication

Data: videoRetention: 1 monthPurpose: security

Alice’s Phone

social influence

What is the impact of social influence on people making privacy-related decisions about allowing data collection by IoT devices?

Research question

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Social influence

Intentional or unintentional changes to individuals’ opinions or behaviors caused by others.

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No!Yes!

We studied indirect, informational social influence

normative

informational

direct indirect

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Normative or informational social influence

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informationalnormative

We studied informational social influence

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informational

Direct or indirect social influence

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direct indirect

We studied indirect social influence

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indirect

Designed a vignette study

Short hypothetical stories…

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Once upon a time …

Scenarios where benefits outweigh risks

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Scenarios where risks outweigh benefits

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Scenarios with a balance

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Used a pre-study to pick scenarios

• 500 Mechanical Turk participants

• From the United States

• Presented with 28 hypothetical IoT data-collection scenarios

• Asked whether participants would allow data collection

• Compensated for $2.50

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Selected 9 pre-study scenarios

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3 allow more than 80% allowed

fewer than 20% allowed

45% to 55% allowed

3 deny

3 balanced

More than 85% of privacy expertsallowed

Consistency

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Consistent

Allow!

Data: temperatureRetention: 1 dayPurpose: adjust room’s temperature

Alice’s Phone

Pilot Participants

Consistency

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Inconsistent

Data: temperatureRetention: 1 dayPurpose: adjust room’s temperature

Alice’s Phone

Fewer than 15% of privacy expertsallowed

Allow!

Pilot Participants

Two consensus level for social cues

• “More than 85% of [influencer] allowed the data collection.”

• “Fewer than 15% of [influencer] allowed the data collection.”

• “More than 65% of [influencer] allowed the data collection.”

• “Fewer than 35% of [influencer] allowed the data collection.”

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strong

weak

5 study conditions

• Out of 9 scenarios in each experimental condition• 5 strong social cues

• 4 weak social cues

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inconsistentexperts

control condition

consistentexperts

consistentfriends

inconsistentfriends

consistent inconsistent inconsistentconsistent

Example of a balanced scenario

You are at the library. This message is displayed on your smartphone:

• Your smartwatch is keeping track of your specific position.

• Your position is used by the smartwatch to determine possible escape routes in the case of an emergency.

• This data will never be deleted.

• [Experimental conditions] Fewer than 35% of your friends allowed this data collection.

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1000 Mechanical Turk participants

• From the United States

• 200 participants per condition

• Avg. age: 35

• ~15 minutes to complete

• Compensated for $2.50

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Questions per scenario

• If you had the choice, would you allow or deny this data collection?

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inferred impact of social influence

Questions after 9 all scenarios

• When considering the 9 scenarios above, how much were you influenced by the decisions that [influencer] made in these scenarios?

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self-reported impact of social influence

Used regression to analyze

• Applied GLMM + random intercept

• Model selection by backward elimination

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Social influence makes a difference!

• People are influenced by privacy experts and their friends differently• Example: 11% more allowed in the “allow” scenarios when influenced by

consistent experts, compared to control condition with no influence

• Social influence speeds up decision making

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Sure!

Social influence speeds up decision making

• In general among all conditions:• allow < deny < balanced

• Impact of social influence:• With social influence (3.69 s) < without social influence (4.24 s)

• Biggest impact on balanced scenarios:• With social influence (3.61 s) < without social influence (4.55 s)

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Factors impacting the extent of social influence

• Task difficulty • Most influence in balanced scenarios

• Consistency • Consistent social cues have more influence

• Strength of social cues • Strength of cues directly relates to the influence

• Type of influencer• Experts allow

• Friends deny

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Reported to be significantly more influenced by consistent friends than by inconsistent friends

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Influenced to opposethe cue

Influenced to followthe cue

not influencedinconsistent social cue200150100500

number of participants

Reported to be significantly more influenced by consistent friends than by inconsistent friends

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Influenced to opposethe cue

Influenced to followthe cue

not influenced

not influenced200150100500

number of participants

consistent social cueinconsistent social cue

Reported to be significantly more influenced by consistent experts than by inconsistent experts

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Influenced to opposethe cue

Influenced to followthe cue

not influenced

number of participants

not influenced

not influenced

consistent social cueinconsistent social cue

200150100500

number of participants

People reported to prefer influence from experts

• Reported to be significantly more influenced when being asked about privacy experts in control condition

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Influenced to opposethe cue

Influenced to followthe cue

cue comes from friends200150100500

number of participants

not influenced

People reported to prefer influence from experts

• Reported to be significantly more influenced when being asked about privacy experts in control condition

• Most mentioned quality to be influenced by: having background in technology

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Influenced to opposethe cue

Influenced to followthe cue

not influenced

200150100500

number of participants

not influenced

cue comes from friendscue comes from experts

not influenced

Social influence in action

• Social influence is a promising approach for privacy assistants

• Important to choose influencers carefully and evaluate them over time

Pardis Emami-Naeini, Martin Degeling, Lujo Bauer, Lorrie Cranor, Mohammad Reza Haghighat, Richard Chow, Heather Patterson

More info: www.privacyassistant.org

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