Thread by @dirkvdlinden

Misplaced #petchip owner details—worrying, right?

But it might be more important to consider what your #pet #technology does with you & your pet's data by design—it might surprise you!

a thread on our research into 🐕🐈tech & #privacy implications:

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bbc.co.uk/news/technolog…

We found that most pet wearables (activity/location trackers) capture far more data of owner than pet—and tend to be vague on what pet data they capture.

But... pet data indirectly reveals information about you, and is shared with health consortia!

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doi.org/10.1109/MSEC.2…

If you think data of your closest furry friend that you share your life with doesn't reflect you in detail, consider this: lots of people use dog activity trackers for joint human & doggie fitness—so your dog's activity might reveal about your health!

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doi.org/10.1109/MC.201…

But even with those privacy considerations, in another study we found most pet owners mostly consider obvious safety threats like pet theft—leading to a worrying information asymmetry where pet owners don't realize the value of their pet's data!

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doi.org/10.1145/337104…

We also studied why, and found that emotional drivers for adopting pet technologies overrule most privacy concerns—nobody wants the pain of losing a pet again... but is that enough to give away detailed information of your pet and you?

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doi.org/10.2478/popets…

Those emotional drivers become more apparent when we studied the relation between the bond we have to our pets and our privacy concerns, revealing that co-sleeping and emotional closeness link to our concerns for how their data is used!

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doi.org/10.1145/337104…

And just to drive the point home: if professional guide dog raising organizations avoid using #pet #wearables for fear of their privacy implications and not knowing how to integrate them safely, there is a lot of work left to do!

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doi.org/10.1109/MTS.20…

Tl;dr: we know enough to be concerned about #pet and #animal data #privacy, but there is much more research needed to disentangle: (1) how human and different pet data intertwines (2) how such data is used by unscrupulous actors & (3) how we can inform and protect us better!

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All that research isn't just me, this remains a major ongoing effort of interdisciplinary collaboration with amazing people like @annazama @BritDavidson @Dr_EWilliams, many more not on twitter, and the @animal_computer community I'm so glad to be a part of ☺️

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The thread above summarizing our research on more pressing privacy concerns for pet tech might also be of interest to @BPSCyberPsych @animal_computer @NU_CISdept @SPRITEPlus @PETRASiot @stokel @NORTHLabHCI @DTScholars @hdinetwork @BBCTech @guardiantech @TelegraphTech

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