Colin Potts, Georgia Institute of Technology Annie I. Anton, North Carolina State University
The guarantee and assurance of privacy must be included in the design of information technologies from the onset. This research focuses on how society uses, values, and protects citizens' personal information. From the perspective of system design, software engineers need methods and tools to enable them to design systems that reflect those values and protect personal information, accordingly. This research examines how privacy considerations and value systems influence the design, deployment and consequences of IT. Investigations will include study of the motivations and barriers to the use of IT when use of these technologies requires the user to provide Personally Identifiable Information (PII). In essence, this work focuses on: societal values, web site policies, and the operational functioning of web-based e-commerce systems, which are often misaligned. The goal is to develop concepts, tools and techniques that help IT professionals and policy makers bring policies and system requirements into better alignment. An action-oriented set of conceptual tools, including guidelines and privacy-relevant policy templates will be constructed and validated. The tools will be fully documented and illustrated on a web site developed for the purpose of conducting the proposed project and disseminating results and recommendations.
