Keeping Information Private in the Mobile Environment

Protecting the privacy of sensitive information is an important consideration in the design of mobile devices and applications. As computing becomes more pervasive, users are able to access information in places such as airports, stores, and restaurants. When personal information is accessed in such public places, it needs to be shielded from strangers. Techniques are needed for the mobile environment to ensure that sensitive information is kept safe, yet still easily accessible and readily understandable in a variety of contexts. In addition, the user should not be required to actively protect sensitive data, but should feel secure in the fact that the application will automatically protect the data. To this end, the authors have been developing ways to display sensitive information on mobile devices such that it is not readily identifiable to an outside observer. We discuss our work to date, our ongoing investigations, and call for more research into this important aspect of ubiquitous computing.