Posted: 23rd August 2023

Congratulations to Wael Albayaydh and Ivan Flechais whose paper Examining Power Dynamics and User Privacy in Smart Technology Use Among Jordanian Households has won a Distinguished Paper Award at the USENIX Security Symposium.

While past research has focused on Western contexts to explore how smart technologies and power dynamics affect privacy of households and smart home bystanders, there is a limited understanding of the impact of such factors within non-Western contexts.

This paper presents the findings from 30 interviews with smart device users and bystanders (households, and domestic workers), policy makers, and human and civil rights activists to explore smart home power dynamics in the Muslim Arab Middle Eastern (MAME) context of Jordan. The research uncovers how asymmetric socio-economic power dynamics between households and domestic workers influence smart technology privacy concerns, practices, and rights perceptions. Drawing on the findings of this study, Wael and Ivan present some recommendations for interventions to balance asymmetric power dynamics, to improve bystanders' agency and privacy protection, and to prevent technology exploitation.

The USENIX Security Symposium brings together researchers, practitioners, system administrators, system programmers, and others interested in the latest advances in the security and privacy of computer systems and networks.