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OnLITE: On-line Label for IoT Transparency Enhancement

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Secure IT Systems (NordSec 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 12556))

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Abstract

We present a privacy transparency tool, which helps non-expert consumers understand and compare how Internet of Things (IoT) devices handle data. The need for such tools arises with the growing number of IoT products and the privacy implications of their use. This research is further motivated by legal acts, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which mandates the communication of privacy practices in a clear language. Our solution summarizes key privacy facts and visualizes information flows in a way that facilitates quick assessments, even for large data sets. We followed an interdisciplinary iterative design process that combines input from legal and usability experts, as well as feedback from 15 participants of our think-aloud task analysis study. In addition to explaining the rationale behind the design and evaluation methodology, we compare our solution, implemented as a graphical user interface, with existing ones. The results show that participants consider the interface straightforward and useful. Our solution encourages them to think critically about privacy and question some of the manufacturers’ claims. Participants also reported that they would be glad if such tools were widely available, to further improve privacy awareness. Besides, our solution can be a part of an evidence-based standardization process, enabling policy-makers to further promote privacy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We chose this test because it is suitable for a sample size of 15, and because we have a normal distribution of scores, verified by means of a Shapiro-Wilk normality test.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the participants of our study and our colleagues at the DPA of Schleswig-Holstein and USECON GmbH, as well as the open source contributors whose software we relied on. This research has received funding from the H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie EU project “Privacy&Us” under the grant agreement No 675730.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Computer Science, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Alexandr Railean & Delphine Reinhardt

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  1. Alexandr Railean
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  2. Delphine Reinhardt
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Correspondence to Alexandr Railean .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Mikael Asplund

  2. Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Simin Nadjm-Tehrani

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Railean, A., Reinhardt, D. (2021). OnLITE: On-line Label for IoT Transparency Enhancement. In: Asplund, M., Nadjm-Tehrani, S. (eds) Secure IT Systems. NordSec 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12556. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70852-8_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70852-8_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70851-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70852-8

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