PRISM: PRIvacy Sensitive Messaging

Student: Sameer Patil, UC Irvine/ISR

Advisor: Alfred Kobsa, UC Irvine/ISR

Abstract: Instant Messaging (IM) is increasingly used as an awareness and communication tool for collaborative work. Studies of IM usage have found, however, that awareness and communication aspects of IM are inherently in tension with privacy. Lack of adequate support for privacy management can potentially lead to suboptimal use of IM thereby undermining its benefits. This paper presents PRISM, a plugin that enhances support for privacy management in IM. The design of PRISM is based on findings from interviews and an online survey of IM users.

Bio:

Sameer Patil is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Informatics at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He has been a Research Intern at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Hawthorne, NY and at Avaya Labs Research in Lincroft, NJ. Prior to joining UCI, Sameer obtained Master's degrees in Computer Science & Engineering and Information from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a Bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering from University of Bombay, India. His research interests lie in the areas of Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), Human Computer Interaction (HCI), and Ubiquitous Computing (ubicomp).