UC Irvine

This paper presents an analysis of attitudes towards everyday tracking and recording technologies (e.g., credit cards, store loyalty cards, store video cameras). This work focuses on both institutional and end-user tracking and recording technologies. In particular, this paper describes (1) an empirical interview and survey study of everyday institutional tracking and recording technologies and (2) an analysis of these empirical data against a framework originally used to describe tension points for end-user tracking and recording technologies. Results from the study demonstrate that people can be highly concerned with information privacy while simultaneously reporting significantly less concern regarding the use of everyday technologies that have the capabilities to collect, process, and disseminate personal information. The empirical results and theoretical analysis identify and begin to explain this dissonance. Furthermore, we provide extensions to the analytic framework for capture and access technologies to address differences, similarities, and interplay between institutional and end-user tracking and recording technologies. The results of this paper contribute to the fields of personal and ubiquitous computing by providing significant insight relevant to the evaluation, design, deployment, and adoption of new tracking and recording technologies.