Towards Inclusive Design for Privacy and Security Perspectives from an Aging Society

Abstract: Over the past few years, older adults in Singapore have been massively connecting to the Internet using Smartphone. However due to the ever-changing nature of Technology and Cybersecurity landscape, an older adult's limited technical and Privacy and Security (P & S) knowledge, experience and declining cognitive and physical abilities puts them at higher risks. Furthermore mainstream smartphone applications, which are generally not designed with older adults in mind, could result in mismatched mental models thereby creating usability issues. We interviewed 10 older adults above 65 and 10 adults assisting them based in Singapore to investigate how smartphone P & S can be redesigned inclusively by addressing the needs of older adults and people who support them. Our results show that socio-cultural factors affected the process of getting or providing P & S help, culture and attitude affected learning behaviours and older adults expressed heterogeneous P & S preferences based on contextual factors and level of convenience, however there are opportunities for the mechanisms to be senior-friendly. Due to the complex relationship between an older adult's milieu and technology, we aim to utilize a technology probe to investigate further and contribute towards an inclusive P & S model.