THE EFFECTS OF FILTERED VIDEO ON AWARENESS AND PRIVACY
Date
2000-06-08
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Abstract
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction
between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy
concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be 'filtered' to
mask out potentially sensitive information. While a variety of filtering
techniques exist, they have not been evaluated for how well they safeguard
privacy. In this paper, we analyze how a blur and a pixelize video filter
might impact both awareness and privacy in a media space. Each filter is
considered at nine different levels of fidelity, ranging from heavily applied
filter levels that mask almost all information, to lightly applied filters
that reveal almost everything. We examined how well observers of several
filtered video scenes extract particular awareness cues: the number of actors;
their posture (moving, standing, seated); their gender; the visible objects
(basic to detailed); and how available people look (their busyness,
seriousness and approachability). We also examined the privacy-preserving
potential of each filter level in the context of common workplace activities.
Our results suggest that the blur filter, and to a lesser extent the pixelize
filter, have a level suitable for providing awareness information while
safeguarding privacy.
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Computer Science