AP4L Security Bubbles

By Nidhi Desai, University of Surrey

Life transitions are major changes that people go through in the course of their lives. These changes can bring about new and unexpected challenges in unforeseen circumstances, with the potential to lead to distress. The AP4L project is developing ways of providing support for individuals as they go through such transitions. Some of the life transitions that the AP4l is focusing on [1][2] are coming out as LGBTQIA+, leaving the armed forces, a relationship breakdown or being diagnosed with a serious illness.

During this critical time when someone is experiencing these major life events, receiving support can help people come through the life transition more confidently and strongly. Nevertheless, in the digital era, there are particular challenges in managing an online presence, which can make users vulnerable to online privacy and safety concerns. Nowadays, online support needs to be thoughtfully designed in order to take into account the needs to handle cybersecurity risks for vulnerable users undergoing life transitions.

Some example transitions are:   

1.      If someone comes out as LGBTQIA+ and needs emotional support to move forward in their transition, this transition needs to be handled sensitively as the user's reputation can be a concern while they come out at their own pace.

2.      Another scenario is if someone is undergoing the life transition event of being diagnosed with a serious illness. The individual undergoing treatment may want support in delegating the payment of hospital bills to a trustee or relative. This transition needs to be managed vigilantly against any malicious transactions.

3.      If a person is undergoing a relationship breakdown and is perhaps being subjected to physical threats or violence, they may need confidential support and advice from various legal experts. This transition needs to be managed cautiously against domestic violence.

These instances of life transition scenarios all require support, in a setting that safeguards online privacy and security.

The AP4L project has been developing a technological innovation called the Security Bubble to provide online support to people undergoing major life transitions, helping to guard their online privacy and security. The idea of a Security Bubble is inspired from the COVID Support Bubble [3], which connected different households to provide support during the challenging times of the pandemic. On similar lines, a Security Bubble connects people with similar experiences and expertise to provide support in a privacy - preserving and secure way.

Apart from privacy and security, online setting of the security bubble has its own set of challenges. Firstly, misinformation as the information available online is difficult to trust. Secondly, imbibing trust to the quality of support offered as people offering support needs to be meticulously investigated due to its sensitive nature. Thirdly, any malicious attempt in breaching people’s privacy needs to be auditable as it will harm user’s reputation which apprehends the participation. Fourth, people controlling their data as this will help establish trust in the Security Bubble.    

The Security Bubble is designed around four kinds of participant, including the individual (Subject) undergoing the life transition, and three different aspects of support that can be provided: Advisor, Moderator, and Trusted Support Organization:

    • The Subject is the individual undergoing a life transition.
    • The Advisor is an expert who gives support to subjects during the life transition.
    • The Moderator oversees the activity within the security bubble and deals with malicious behaviour.
    • The Trusted Support Organization provides the infrastructure for setting up the security bubble.

A broad outline of the idea is that the subject requests support from the Trusted Support Organisation. The Trusted Support Organization then selects advisors pertaining to their expertise and reputation, and a moderator to oversee the activity within the bubble. The moderated security bubble is set up with the subject and advisors. The Security Bubble is then dissolved when the subject gives feedback to the advisors for the support. The Security Bubble is sensitively designed to accommodate multiple advisors where appropriate to provide support. Distributed Ledger Technology helps maintain data publicly. 

The Security Bubble design protects the privacy of subjects and advisors' while ensuring accountability. Moreover, it also ensures professional support, people’s control over data, limiting misinformation, and auditability.  We would appreciate feedback to our proposed idea from the readers of the blog for further refinement.  

[1] Oliver L. Haimson, Bryan Semaan, Brianna Dym, Joey Chiao-Yin Hsiao, Daniel Herron, and Wendy Moncur. 2019. Life Transitions and Social Technologies: Research and Design for Times of Life Change. In Conference Companion Publication of the 2019 on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (Austin, TX, USA) (CSCW ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 480–486. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311957.3359431

[2] Oliver L. Haimson, Albert J. Carter, Shanley Corvite, Brookelyn Wheeler, Lingbo Wang, Tianxiao Liu, and Alexxus Lige. 2021. The major life events taxonomy: Social readjustment, social media information sharing, and online network separation during times of life transition. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 72, 7 (2021), 933–947. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24455 arXiv:https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/asi.24455  

[3] Support bubbles: How do they work and who is in yours? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52637354

 

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