Semantic Web Technologies for Social Translucence and Privacy Mirrors on the Web
1. Semantic Web Technologies for
Social Translucence and Privacy
Mirrors on the Web
Mathieu d’Aquin and Keerthi Thomas
Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University
@mdaquin / semprivacy.com
2. Privacy?
Privacy is not simply an absence of
information about us in the minds of others,
rather it is the control we have over
information about ourselves
-- Charles Fried - 1968
3. Privacy?
Privacy is not simply an absence of
information about us in the minds of others,
rather it is the control we have over
information about ourselves
-- Charles Fried - 1968
4. Privacy?
user
input
System
output
Privacy is not simply an absence of
information about us in the minds of others,
rather it is the control we have over
information about ourselves
-- Charles Fried - 1968
5. Privacy?
user
System
output
input
Privacy is not simply an absence of
information about us in the minds of others,
rather it is the control we have over
feedback
information about ourselves
-- Charles Fried - 1968
6. Privacy?
user
Web
privacy state
activities
Privacy is not simply an absence of
information about us in the minds of others,
rather it is the control we have over
feedback
information about ourselves
-- Charles Fried - 1968
7. Or in other words,
Social Translucence
In systems with a social process component,
to achieve coherent behaviours, it is
necessary for the system to make such
behaviours visible and understandable to
the users.
-- Erickson and Kellogg, 2000
11. Challenges
• Collecting and managing
data about the user activities
and the extermal world
affecting them
• Integrate this information in a
coherent, explorable base
• Make sense of this
information so that it can be
understood (and so acted
upon by the user)
?
12. Challenges
• Collecting and managing
data about the user activities
and the extermal world
affecting them
• Integrate this information in a
coherent, explorable base
• Make sense of this
information so that it can be
understood (and so acted
upon by the user)
That reminds
me of
something…
13. Challenges
• Collecting and managing
data about the user activities
and the extermal world
affecting them
• Integrate this information in a
coherent, explorable base
• Make sense of this
information so that it can be
understood (and so acted
upon by the user)
Ah, I know:
Semantic
Web
Technologies!
15. Personal Analytics
d'Aquin, Elahi, Motta.
Semantic technologies to
support the user-centric
analysis of activity data.
SDoW 2011 at ISWC 2011
Thomas and d'Aquin. On
the privacy implications of
releasing consumer
activity data. KMi Tech.
Report kmi-13-02, 2013.
21. Example epistemic rules
Ka Post(X) :- author(X, a)
Ka Post(X) :- scope(X, All_Friends), author(X, Y), friend(Y, a)
Ka Post(X) :- includes(X,Y), friend(Y, a)
Ka wasIn(P, Y) :- includes(X,Y), in(X,P), Ka Post(X)
Ka wasWith (Y,Z) :- includes(X, Y), include(X,Z), Ka Post(X)
24. Message and call for action
Semantic Web Technologies can help
individuals in better interpreting their own
activities in terms of privacy consequences.
Build semantic, web privacy mirrors!
Some simple examples.
Quite many more challenges.