Consent in the Age of AR: Investigating The Comfort With Displaying Personal Information in Augmented Reality

Title of the Paper

Consent in the Age of AR: Investigating The Comfort With Displaying Personal Information in Augmented Reality

Bibliographic Information

• Research Domain: The impact of Augmented Reality (AR) technology on the display of personal information, focusing on user comfort and privacy concerns.
• Keywords: Smart glasses, augmented reality, mixed reality, social acceptability, user acceptance, public experience, personal information, information disclosure, consent, comfort.

Research Background and Questions

• Research Questions:

  • AR head-mounted displays (AR-HMDs) can directly display personal information near the user's body, opening new possibilities for information presentation and consumption but also raising issues of privacy and social comfort.
  • How can personal information be displayed in non-interactive AR social scenarios, and are there differences in comfort levels between AR and other mediums like smartphones?
  • How do different roles (information recipient vs. information subject) and information characteristics (sensitivity, self-disclosure vs. non-self-disclosure) impact user comfort?

• Significance of the Study:

  • Information presentation is a critical aspect of understanding user privacy protection and social acceptability.
  • As AR devices become more widespread, they are expected to emerge as a new form of information interaction. Researching these issues provides valuable design and legal recommendations for policymakers and technology developers.

• Related Research:

  • Existing studies focus on AR functionalities such as emotion recognition and memory assistance, with limited exploration of the social implications of enhanced personal information display.
  • Previous academic work has established a correlation between the disclosure of sensitive information and individual comfort, but this attribute remains underexplored in the context of AR.
  • Non-self-disclosed information, often obtained through social media and big data analysis, is significantly associated with user discomfort.

Proposed Solutions

• Research Methodology:

  • An online survey experiment (N=148) was designed to investigate how three key variables (display medium, role, and information intimacy) influence comfort levels.
  • The experiment employed a mixed design, with medium (AR vs. smartphone) and role (information subject vs. information recipient) as between-subject factors, and information characteristics (intimacy and source) as within-subject factors.

• Innovative Contributions:

  • Introduced a comparative study of AR and smartphones in information display scenarios.
  • Considered the ethical implications of non-self-disclosed information.
  • Quantified the heterogeneity between information subjects and recipients for the first time.

• Key Steps:

  1. Participants first evaluated their perceived intimacy of different information categories.
  2. Participants were introduced to AR technology and scenarios of self-disclosed and non-self-disclosed information through text and video.
  3. Using a control group design, participants imagined themselves as either the information subject or recipient and completed relevant questionnaires.
  4. Data was collected on participants' overall feelings about the continuous display of personal information and their attitudes toward different information categories.
  5. A comparative analysis of comfort levels between AR and smartphones was conducted, with a focus on the roles of information intimacy and disclosure type.

Research Findings

• Key Conclusions:

  • Medium Effect: AR displays were found to be more discomforting than smartphones. In AR contexts, the predictive power of information characteristics (e.g., intimacy) decreased.
  • Role Differences: Information subjects (those whose information is displayed) generally felt more discomfort than information recipients.
  • Impact of Non-Self-Disclosed Information: Information that was not self-disclosed caused significantly more discomfort than self-disclosed information.
  • Differences in Information Types: Regardless of whether the information was self-disclosed or not, people were less accepting of public displays of personal information. Only a limited set of basic information (e.g., name, gender, interests) was deemed relatively "comfortable."

• Advantages Over Existing Solutions:

  • By integrating psychology, user experience, and AR technology research, the study quantified significant differences in comfort levels between AR and smartphones for information display.
  • Proposed design principles based on obtaining explicit user consent.

• Experimental Data and Results:

  • The survey revealed that comfort levels were generally lower in AR contexts, especially for highly intimate information.
  • For highly private information, such as "criminal records," participants felt less comfortable with AR displays compared to smartphone displays.
  • In open-ended responses, participants expressed concerns about the potential misuse of AR technology and suggested stronger regulatory measures.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Limitations:
    • The use of a survey method rather than real AR devices may have affected the ecological validity of the results.
    • The study focused on information sharing scenarios between strangers, which may differ from information exchanges in close relationships.
  • Future Directions:
    • Explore comfort levels with AR-enhanced information displays among participants from diverse cultural backgrounds.
    • Investigate how information enhancement systems can be customized for specific contexts, such as professional or social settings.
    • Examine how information enhancement technologies can implement dynamic consent mechanisms to strengthen user privacy protection.