HCC: Small: Collaborative Privacy Practices: Exploring Privacy in Information Intensive Environments

Information privacy and security has long focused on the individual. Most technological safeguards and policies have been oriented towards individual privacy practices (IPP). Yet, many organizational settings are highly collaborative where team work is the norm. Consequently, project researchers will investigate why and how people enact collaborative privacy practices (CPP) and provide design recommendations to develop more effective mechanisms to assure privacy during these activities.

Specifically the project will

1. Improve the conceptual understanding of CPP by investigating these practices in highly collaborative and information-intensive domain where information privacy is essential (e.g., healthcare)

2. Develop a conceptual model of CPP using a multi-method research approach

3. Examine privacy-enhancing technical features that can most effectively support CPP

This project will make three contributions to our knowledge of privacy and security. First, it will advance the theoretical understanding of the collaborative nature of privacy practices. Second, this project will advance the design of privacy enhancing technologies to focus on collaborative privacy practices. Third, it will help foster more effective design interventions by understanding the users? collaborative privacy practices that are often ignored in technical and organizational specifications of privacy and security.

The future development of privacy-enhancing features in information systems must not only focus on privacy assurance for individual users but also privacy assurance during collaborative activities. That is the central thrust of this project. Its broader impact lies in the development of new processes, policies, and technologies to support privacy in collaborative environments without hindering people?s activities in these environments.