hello my name is Ivan and with my co-author Wael we would like to thank you for your interest in
our paper exploring bystanders privacy concerns in smart homes in Jordan. Smart homes and smart
devices continue to raise concerns about privacy and the encroachment of business interests into
private domestic spaces prior research has focused on families and smart devices and
has highlighted the importance of bystanders who are subject to data collection by smart devices
this has also highlighted that different cultures and societies present different qualities that
strongly influence how privacy is conceptualized and understood and also how privacy practices
norms and preferences are highly contextual we identify a gap where bystanders in non-western
societies have been insufficiently researched in this paper we report on a qualitative study
we conducted to investigate privacy concerns of families and domestic workers in smart homes in
jordan our research is exploratory and highlights a number of different topics ranging from privacy
concerns public awareness existing data protection and privacy policies power dynamics between user
groups social and religious influences on privacy concerns expectations and practices
and user aspirations for privacy protection we conducted this study in jordan which is an
arab country in the middle east with a moderate islamic background a majority muslim population
and a significant population of immigrants from neighboring countries we focus on exploring
privacy in the muslim non-western context and scope our research to exploring the privacy of
bystanders in smart homes we used grounded theory to inform the collection and analysis of data
and the validation of the findings our study collected data from semi-structured interviews
with 20 participants including 8 families and 12 domestic workers our analysis identified 220 codes
which we organized under the following five themes first week public awareness of smart technology
second privacy concerns and expectations third the perceptions of privacy rights and expectations
fourth the contextual social and religious influences on privacy concerns and rights and
finally user and bystander aspirations for more innovative privacy control features in the future
we found weak levels of knowledge skill and awareness of smart homes and smart home devices
many participants did not have a very strong understanding of smart technologies and generally
demonstrated a knowledge of popular brands rather than types of device or smart functionality
most participants also had relatively low levels of privacy awareness where the main privacy
concerns were tied to audio-visual data collection but no concerns were raised about other types of
data collection in addition participants did not demonstrate a good awareness of core issues tied
to managing smart devices such as how data was accessible to others for how long data was stored
or for what purpose it was being used we also found that recruitment agencies had a very limited
role in raising awareness among domestic workers about smart technologies and did not provide any
guidance or information to potential workers while the primary concern was audio visual data
collection we also found that domestic workers in the home were seen as a potential threat to
the family's privacy a number of families and domestic workers attributed an improvement
to worker performance as a consequence of adopting more disciplined practices resulting from being
monitored by smart devices and they also explained that workers should respect the rules of the home
in a number of cases families did not explicitly inform workers of smart devices
some families assumed that workers were aware of these devices without having to be informed
and others did not want to inform workers fearing potential problems such as device misuse from the
perspective of the workers it was clearly felt that not being informed about smart devices in
the home was indicative of distrust in the absence of clear relevant privacy policies
in jordan we identified asymmetries in the power dynamics between workers and families
workers frequently gave up their privacy in favor of retaining their jobs as well as safety benefits
and convenience we found that some families had an autocratic attitude towards deciding what is
acceptable in the home and felt that workers should adapt to home rules we found also that
some workers think that families disrespect their privacy and found several conflicting
views relating to the perception of privacy rights for workers and families some workers reported
adopting compensatory practices to protect their privacy for example placing a scarf on cameras
or deliberately avoiding the devices we found clear contextual influences on privacy concerns
practices and rights we found examples where islam was used to justify that families should
treat workers well and respect their privacy and also to validate that female workers should
not accept monitoring or video recording without head coverings we also found attitudes tied to the
social standing of visitors and workers where some argued that smart devices should be disclosed to
guests who could then become upset if not but not to domestic workers who are paid to work finally
our participants had a number of aspirations for innovative privacy control features that could
be adopted to protect people's privacy such as recognition technologies to avoid collecting data
about specific individuals including bystanders or a technical mechanism to disclose the presence of
smart devices these suggestions were tempered with concerns that these features could be exploited
to jeopardize the security and privacy of users the outcomes of this study resonate with the
outcomes of prior studies which have shown weak public awareness of smart technologies
the clear need for privacy research to address non-western context and the role of policy makers
and public awareness entities in improving privacy protection for smart home bystanders
we also believe these outcomes are applicable to other middle east and north african contexts
to improve awareness we recommend conducting public awareness campaigns about responsible
smart technology use developing information booklet guides for families and developing
information materials and guidance for recruitment agencies and other stakeholders
while the jordanian government is working towards a data protection law the current lack of privacy
regulation in jordan is opening smart homes to asymmetric power dynamics between families and
workers and we recommend that policymakers need to consider bystanders privacy concerns
in future policies and regulations as well as leveraging contextual understandings of how
these can be applied to regulation we recommend that smart device designers investigate
and develop more innovative and contextual privacy features in response to the concerns
and aspirations raised by our participants examples include new features based on ai
to reduce privacy risks on different user and bystander groups or improving agency by making
devices discoverable by making actions clear and by requesting permissions where relevant
in summary our study of bystander privacy in smart homes in jordan identified a number of
concerns attitudes and practices and pointed to asymmetries of knowledge control and power
dynamics between different user groups we found several instances where social and religious
norms influenced privacy practices concerns and rights and made a number of recommendations to
address the gap in protection for bystanders thank you for your interest in our research