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Secrets (But Not Lies)
I know you have a secret.
But don't worry I won't tell, but I just wanted to let you know that I know. That's enough.
During in-depth interviews into what people carry a sub-theme that sometimes emerges is the issue of privacy and secrecy - the things people carry that they don't want to reveal to others. They can be physical objects but increasingly they come in the form of electronic data.
Why would anyone tell a researcher about the secret things they carry? In the street interview context participants consider themselves anonymous (and we preserve this anonymity); they may not think through the consequences of what they are saying - which might be fine for an investigative journalist but can put a corporate researcher on the spot; it may be that the reward for revealing this information now is greater that the perceived consequences of having revealed it to the wrong person later (we work hard not to put people in this situation but it has been done); sometimes people don't know what they've revealed or reveal by accident; but more often than not the risk of revealing information to me, that is someone who is 'neutral' and not an authority figure, is low.
There are different levels of privacy and secrecy - a medical condition may be considered secret from everyone including close family; but other things that are only secret within the work context. I expect to see more human behaviours shielding secrets from the sensors that surround us. A kind-of example of this arose in a study a couple of yeas ago. A participant knew that by default a particular communication channel was being recorded, and being about to do something that was not strictly adhering to the rules (but not necessarily breaking them either) pushed some of her communication through alternative channels. Which raises a number of questions on one side regarding legal obligations and on the other the obligation to say whether the alternatives themselves are being recorded.
How does all this affect how people carry what they carry? In subtle ways. Frequent use objects such as bicycle keys during a day shopping in town are more likely to be carried in a separate pocket to secret objects. Every time a person fishes into a pocket to take out the keys the [xx secret xx] object carried in the same pocket risks falling to the floor. Some of these issues map to the digital user interface realm: a device may contain personal information but supports tasks that involve shared use outside the immediate peer group. Watching a sports event on a Mobile Phone TV for example.
There are other ways to scope secret things that people carry. Our summer intern from last year carried out a series of interviews with organisations such as hotels, department stores and the police asking about: what people lose; with what frequency; how long it takes to discover they are lost; the triggers for losing; and the steps and barriers to recover the objects. Items turning up in lost and found included balistic weapons and large sums of money all of which require different levels of privacy and secrecy depending on the context in which they are carried. Mobile phones are relatively easy to recover because people tend to notice they are missing quite quickly, they can be called by the owner, and even if switched off they include a call log. However even if the ability to track down the owner is easy, recovery is not necessarily straight forward if people don't want to be identified with having been in a particular place and/or location at a particular time.
You look at a group of people and see a group of people. I look at the same thing and wonder what their secrets are and what I can do to keep their secrets well, secret.
And the photo above? Nothing to do with secrecy research - just a random shot taken in an elevator.
Writing from Tokyo | March 26, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
As an intern last summer I did some research on the possibility of using mobile phones as the primary repository for (as yet largely unrealized) PKI digital identies.
This is a 95% social, 5% technical proposition, and since you mention secret electronic data, I'm curious if your crystal ball has revealed any insights as to what form this might take, or why it probably won't.
Posted by: Andrew at March 27, 2006 12:10 AM
Google is, I think, doing something which somehow relates to this. However, they impose their control through indexing of content, ie. ordering the media, locally with google desktop and on-line with their indexing robots. Thus, this creates an extra layer of control through BOTH ordering and trust. It's not either or, but both together.
The monetary system and institutions of banking are something very much close to that: people outsource their money matters to that institution, mainly because they trust it, and it proves worthy of that trust. And also, to be able to more easily control larger amounts of cash and money feeds. Currently, there's a lot of interesting public discussion and pressure from the government of U.S. of should Google deliver information about individuals' behaviours to the government. Technically very simple, socially extremely complex and to Google's business strategy: critical. Here's a nice article about technology and social control with historical awareness and some typology too. http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/techandsocial.html . The article points it's finger a bit towards mere objects, which can always be work'd around easily. And finally, because the thread is future oriented, expect commercially succesful material and immaterial equivalents of tin-foil hats emerging as separate products, services and as new parts of existing stuff. :)
Posted by: vt at March 27, 2006 10:05 PM