Examining Caregiving Roles to Differentiate the Effects of Using a Mobile App for Community Oversight for Privacy and Security

2024-09-04

arXiv.org

AI Summary

Digital privacy management remains challenging for users with heterogeneous digital literacy, particularly in community-based contexts where relational trust and collaborative agency are critical. Method: We conducted a four-week field experiment with 101 participants organized into 22 family- and neighborhood-based groups using Community-Oriented Privacy Support (CO-oPS) — a mobile application explicitly designed to support privacy co-management through caregiver–care-recipient role differentiation. Data were collected via behavioral logging and validated quantitative surveys, analyzed using role-based comparative modeling. Contribution/Results: We provide the first empirical evidence that role-differentiated collaboration significantly enhances device adoption, community trust, and both collective and self-efficacy—especially among care recipients. Caregivers showed marked improvements across all metrics, while care recipients exhibited comparatively greater gains in efficacy measures. These findings substantiate community-driven collaboration as an effective mechanism for bridging the digital privacy capability gap, advancing a relationship-centered, empowerment-oriented paradigm for privacy governance.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Privacy
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Representing, Reasoning, and Using Provenance, Trust

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Privacy-enhancing technologies
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User privacy protection in personalized systems

Abstract

We conducted a 4-week field study with 101 smartphone users who self-organized into 22 small groups of family, friends, and neighbors to use ``CO-oPS,'' a mobile app for co-managing mobile privacy and security. We differentiated between those who provided oversight (i.e., caregivers) and those who did not (i.e., caregivees) to examine differential effects on their experiences and behaviors while using CO-oPS. Caregivers reported higher power use, community trust, belonging, collective efficacy, and self-efficacy than caregivees. Both groups' self-efficacy and collective efficacy for mobile privacy and security increased after using CO-oPS. However, this increase was significantly stronger for caregivees. Our research demonstrates how community-based approaches can benefit people who need additional help managing their digital privacy and security. We provide recommendations to support community-based oversight for managing privacy and security within communities of different roles and skills.

Problem

• Differentiate effects of mobile app on caregivers vs caregivees
• Assess impact of community oversight on privacy and security
• Evaluate efficacy changes in managing digital privacy collectively

Innovation

• Mobile app for co-managing privacy and security
• Differentiated caregiver and caregivee roles
• Community-based oversight enhances digital safety