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Title: Monitoring Pets, Deterring Intruders, and Casually Spying on Neighbors: Everyday Uses of Smart Home Cameras
The increased adoption of smart home cameras (SHCs) foregrounds issues of surveillance, power, and privacy in homes and neighborhoods. However, questions remain about how people are currently using these devices to monitor and surveil, what the benefits and limitations are for users, and what privacy and security tensions arise between primary users and other stakeholders. We present an empirical study with 14 SHC users to understand how these devices are used and integrated within everyday life. Based on semistructured qualitative interviews, we investigate users’ motivations, practices, privacy concerns, and social negotiations. Our findings highlight the SHC as a perceptually powerful and spatially sensitive device that enables a variety of surveillant uses outside of basic home security—from formally surveilling domestic workers, to casually spying on neighbors, to capturing memories. We categorize surveillant SHC uses, clarify distinctions between primary and non primary users, and highlight under-considered design directions for addressing power imbalances among primary and non-primary users.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1947696 1910218 2142795
PAR ID:
10349158
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 25
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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