Fred Stutzman

Researcher, Developer · We investigate the feasibility of combining publicly available Web 2.0 data with off-the-shelf face recognition software for… · More the purpose of large-scale, automated individual re-identification. Two experiments illustrate the ability of identifying strangers online (on a dating site where individuals protect their identities by using pseudonyms) and offline (in a public space), based on photos made publicly available on a social network site. A third proof-of-concept experiment illustrates the ability of inferring strangers' personal or sensitive information (their interests and Social Security numbers) from their faces, by combining face recognition, data mining algorithms, and statistical re-identification techniques. The results highlight the implications of the convergence of face recognition technology and increasing online self-disclosure, and the emergence of "personally predictable'' information, or PPI. They raise questions about the future of privacy in an "augmented'' reality world in which online and offline data will seamlessly blend.

Researcher, Developer · Over the past decade, social network sites have experienced dramatic growth in popularity, reaching most demographics and… · More providing new opportunities for interaction and socialization. Through this growth, users have been challenged to manage novel privacy concerns and balance nuanced trade-offs between disclosing and withholding personal information. To date, however, no study has documented how privacy and disclosure evolved on social network sites over an extended period of time. In this manuscript we use profile data from a longitudinal panel of 5,076 Facebook users to understand how their privacy and disclosure behavior changed between 2005---the early days of the network---and 2011. Our analysis highlights three contrasting trends. First, over time Facebook users in our dataset exhibited increasingly privacy-seeking behavior, progressively decreasing the amount of personal data shared publicly with unconnected profiles in the same network. However, and second, changes implemented by Facebook near the end of the period of time under our observation arrested or in some cases inverted that trend. Third, the amount and scope of personal information that Facebook users revealed privately to other connected profiles actually increased over time---and because of that, so did disclosures to ``silent listeners'' on the network: Facebook itself, third-party apps, and (indirectly) advertisers. These findings highlight the tension between privacy choices as expressions of individual subjective preferences, and the role of the environment in shaping those choices.

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