Tools and Prototypes

 

A core aspect of the project has been to design conceptual prototypes for systems and tools that address problems we identified in our fieldwork.  This page lists all of the prototypes under various stages of development. Please note that some are concepts, while others are functional prototypes.

All are FOSS (Free and Open Source) and we welcome suggestions and contributions! 

 

  • ARETHA: A Personal Privacy assistant for the Smart Home : ARETHA is a prototype privacy assistant that empowers people to understand and take meaningful action to improve their privacy connected, smart homes.  This project, commenced under the EPSRC PETRAS ReTIPS project, was extended, refined and improved in this project and deployed ARETHA in a field study which has been published as a CHI2019 paper: Informing the Design of Privacy-Enhancing Tools for the Connected Home .  The project is currently under active development, with voice extensions and augmented reality extensions planned.

  • Social Translucence of Smart Security Systems : Home security systems are  enhanced accountabiity and privacy for families (and other houses of multiple occupancy) through the concept of social translucence: giving people lightweight awareness of others’ actions around the data, such as who accessed/viewed/edited/deleted what, when, and why.  Working to implement a prototype that works with existing Netgear ARLO cameras and Open Source Raspberry-PI based security systems, for a field study. This prototype will realise actions through the ontology of contextual integrity. This is currently at early stages of implementation and active implementation will be a primary activity for the next 3 weeks. 

  • Data Protection Passports (DPP) (Conceptual Prototype) - Radical smart city and wearable device concept for enabling consentful data collection and negotiation for mobility: using a digital privacy proxy worn o-body that interfaces with physical space surveillance architectures (in public and private spaces) to negotiate terms of data collection.