| dc.contributor.author | Hawkey, Kirstie. | en_US |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2014-10-21T12:38:16Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2007 | |
| dc.date.issued | 2007 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.other | AAINR27179 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10222/54884 | |
| dc.description | Privacy can be a concern during informal collaboration around someone's personal display when traces of activity incidental to the current task are displayed. This dissertation examined how to help users manage their visual privacy within web browsers. A key goal was to allow users to maintain the functionality of their browser convenience features (e.g. Auto Complete, History, Favorites) while limiting the information displayed within the features to content that is appropriate for their current viewing situation. | en_US |
| dc.description | We first needed to determine the extent of the problem, the nature of the privacy concerns, and the browsing behaviours which may impact the effectiveness of privacy management solutions. For this exploratory research, we employed a mixed methodology approach consisting of a survey (155 participants) and two, week-long field studies (35 participants total). The survey examined participants' privacy concerns for varying usage scenarios, while the field studies examined participants' application of a four-tier privacy gradient to their actual web browsing activity. Results identified several factors that impact a person's privacy comfort level in a given situation and enabled us to develop a model of visual privacy concerns. | en_US |
| dc.description | Results also guided development of design guidelines for visual privacy management systems for web browsers. Such a system must support easy classification of new traces of browsing activity and provide mechanisms to appropriately filter those traces during collaboration. As documented in our results, the rapid bursts of activity and the magnitude of web pages visited will make it difficult for users to manually classify their activities with a privacy level. Our exploratory data allowed us to examine the feasibility of three privacy management approaches. Based on these results, PrivateBits, a proof of concept privacy enhancing web browser, was developed as an instantiation of our design requirements and leveraged usage patterns we observed in our field studies. An initial evaluation of PrivateBits showed that it was effective at allowing users with varying privacy concerns and browsing behaviours to manage the privacy of their web browsing traces. | en_US |
| dc.description | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 2007. | en_US |
| dc.language | eng | en_US |
| dc.publisher | Dalhousie University | en_US |
| dc.publisher | | en_US |
| dc.subject | Computer Science. | en_US |
| dc.title | Managing the visual privacy of incidental information in Web browsers. | en_US |
| dc.type | text | en_US |
| dc.contributor.degree | Ph.D. | en_US |
