Where Does Privacy Research Go From Here? Navigating the Challenges and Paths Forward

Abstract

Networked privacy has been a focus of CSCW research, but the highly contextual nature of privacy presents complex challenges that researchers must navigate. For instance, as technologies evolve, new forms of and mechanisms causing privacy violations emerge. This is further complicated by the fact that individual and population-level differences can drastically alter perceptions and experiences navigating privacy online. Furthermore, attempts to capture such contextually relevant factors has led to a proliferation of privacy frameworks, all with different underlying scopes and assumptions, making it difficult to compare research across contexts. In sum, privacy research is time-consuming, often focused on a specific context with a specific population, making it difficult for scholars to study quickly shifting technologies and the lived experiences of privacy violations, let alone provide solutions. We propose a workshop to bring together the research community so that we can identify and align on the grand challenges in privacy research and prioritize a future research agenda for our community. This could include theoretical and methodological improvements, ways to study quickly proliferating new technologies, navigating pluralism, and working towards societal impact. We invite privacy researchers, industry practitioners, privacy advocates, and others to join us in shaping the future of privacy research.