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Smart home devices raise privacy concerns among not only primary users but also bystanders like domestic workers. We conducted 25 qualitative interviews with nannies and 16 with parents who employed nannies, in the U.S., to explore and compare their views on and privacy threat models for smart home devices. We found device-specific purposes of use inspired different perspectives among nanny participants. Most were comfortable with employers’ smart speakers and smart TVs, whose purpose had nothing to do with them. However, with indoor smart cameras, nanny participants were often not just bystanders but targets of monitoring; in such situations, they had a wider range of attitudes. In contrast, parent participants tended to have more similar views across devices. We found notable disconnects regarding disclosure, where nanny participants often hesitated to ask about cameras, but parent participants assumed nannies just didn’t care. We recommend prioritizing interventions supporting disclosure, discussion, and sharing control.
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This content will become publicly available on July 1, 2026
Who Cares? Contextual Privacy Judgments from Owner and Bystander Perspectives in Different Smart Home Situations
Current privacy protections for smart home devices rarely consider bystanders' privacy, whose preferences are varied and may differ from primary users. We use Contextual Integrity theory to explore context-dependent variation in privacy norms regarding smart home bystanders’ data. We conducted a vignette-based survey with 761 participants in the US, varying parameter values to capture acceptability judgments regarding bystander information flows in certain situations: domestic work, shared housing, visiting a friend overnight, and Airbnb. We found that recipients and purposes of sharing impact acceptance the most. Sharing interaction logs was more acceptable than audio or video. Sharing smart speaker data was less acceptable than smart camera or smart door lock data. We found nuanced interaction effects between factors in different smart home situations, and differences between protections most favored by participants playing bystander vs. owner roles. We provide design and policy recommendations for smart home privacy protections that consider bystanders' needs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2114229
- PAR ID:
- 10608304
- Editor(s):
- Jansen, Rob; Shafiq, Zubair
- Publisher / Repository:
- Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies
- Volume:
- 2025
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2299-0984
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 106 to 134
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Privacy Norms, Contextual Integrity, Bystanders, Smart Homes, Internet of Things, Ubiquitous Technology
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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