Understanding Privacy and Trust in Smart Home Environments

Smart homes – a residence with innovative, interconnected, and automated technologies – can enhance the resident’s quality of life and well-being. Despite these potentials, users’ may have concerns about the increased automation which negatively influence their technology acceptance. Missing trust in automated technologies and privacy concerns have been identified as crucial barriers for smart home adoption. Still, privacy and trust perceptions in smart homes have not yet been deeply understood. Also, the effect of different automation levels has not been studied so far. In a qualitative empirical approach, we examine perceptions of privacy and trust in smart home technologies depending on the level of automation (using two juxtaposed scenarios: partially automated vs. highly automated). 10 adults (20 to 87 years) were interviewed. Trust in smart home technologies comprises multiple dimensions of not only trust in the functionality of the technology but also in the human stakeholders involved and in connected technologies. Privacy in smart home does not only regard informational privacy (data protection) but also physical, social, and psychological dimensions of privacy which are often neglected. The results show that privacy and trust in smart home are interdependent. The degree of automation strongly influences privacy and trust perceptions – with a higher automation leading to more concerns. Our results contribute to a deeper understanding of privacy and trust in smart homes. The negative impact of the level of automation on privacy and trust perceptions is a guide for the development of smart home technologies that meet users’ acceptance.