Ubiquitous Computing

Our research on wearable computing devices and ubiquitous computing platforms centers around discovering and mitigating new threats to user privacy and security prior to these systems (and their associated risks) becoming widespread. We are examining the different privacy and security issues that users perceive, as well as more effective methods for communicating how these devices might be collecting different types of personal information about their users and those around them.

We’re broadly interested in answering the following questions:

  • How can we create privacy notifications to inform users and bystanders about the types of data that ubiquitous sensing technologies might be collecting?
  • How can we architect platforms to enforce privilege separation, so that applications only collect the data that they need to function?
  • Can we guarantee that data collected for a particular purpose will only be used for that purpose?
  • What are the privacy and security risks associated with wearable computing devices, and how do users weigh their costs/benefits?
  • What new attack vectors are we likely to see targeting wearable and ubiquitous computing platforms?