The privacy aware transmission highway framework

Abstract

Handling users' privacy in ubiquitous systems is a difficult challenge. Many frameworks have been proposed to analyse the problems of privacy in a world with computers resembling typewriters. However, as the world evolves towards a proliferation of invisible computers, we see that the classical approaches are insufficient. Designers and developers need tools to help them better understand how to mitigate privacy threats in such complex systems. In our approach, the privacy aware transmission highway (PATH) framework, we address privacy threats originated as the result of the interaction between users and ubiquitous computing systems. We analyse the reasons why these privacy threats occur and propose a method to decompose the complex and abstract problem of privacy into more manageable sub-problems. An evaluation has been conducted with experts and students to validate the applicability of the framework.