Privacy Perceptions in Sensor-Powered Smart Vehicle Cabins
For automotive designers and policymakers, this work provides qualitative insights into privacy concerns of multiple stakeholders in smart car cabins, though it is an incremental qualitative study.
This study investigates privacy perceptions of vehicle owners and non-owners in sensor-powered smart car cabins through semi-structured interviews with 18 participants, identifying key factors influencing privacy preferences and offering design implications to balance diverse privacy needs.
As car cabins evolve with the integration of diverse sensors, traditional car cabins are transforming into smart environments. This shift raises important questions about how privacy is understood and managed in such spaces. In this work, we investigate privacy perceptions from the perspectives of both vehicle owners (i.e., people who purchase and own cars) and non-owners (i.e., people who temporarily use cars, such as family members, friends, or renters). Through semi-structured interviews with eighteen participants, we identified key factors that influence these groups' views on privacy. Our findings reveal factors that commonly influence privacy preferences for both owners and non-owners, as well as factors that have a stronger impact on one group over the other. Drawing on these insights, we discuss design implications for future designs to better support and balance the diverse privacy needs of multiple stakeholders in smart car cabins.