Shijing He’s research while affiliated with The London College and other places

Smart home devices, such as security cameras and voice assistants, have seen widespread adoption due to the utility and convenience they offer to users. The deployment of these devices in homes, however, raises privacy concerns for bystanders—people who may not necessarily have a say in the deployment and configuration of these devices, and yet are exposed to or affected by their data collection. Examples of bystanders include guests, short-term tenants, and domestic workers. Prior work has studied the privacy concerns of different bystander groups and proposed design solutions for addressing these concerns. In this paper, we present a systematic review of previous studies, describing how smart home bystanders are defined and classified, and illuminating the range of concerns and solutions proposed in the existing academic literature. We also discuss limitations in prior work, barriers to the uptake of research-based solutions by industry, and identify avenues for future research.

The growing use of smart home devices poses considerable privacy and security challenges, especially for individuals like migrant domestic workers (MDWs) who may be surveilled by their employers. This paper explores the privacy and security challenges experienced by MDWs in multi-user smart homes through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 26 MDWs and 5 staff members of agencies that recruit and/or train domestic workers in China. Our findings reveal that the relationships between MDWs, their employers, and agencies are characterized by significant power imbalances, influenced by Chinese cultural and social factors (such as Confucianism and collectivism), as well as legal ones. Furthermore, the widespread and normalized use of surveillance technologies in China, particularly in public spaces, exacerbates these power imbalances, reinforcing a sense of constant monitoring and control. Drawing on our findings, we provide recommendations to domestic worker agencies and policymakers to address the privacy and security challenges facing MDWs in Chinese smart homes.

Mobile gaze tracking involves inferring a user's gaze point or direction on a mobile device's screen from facial images captured by the device's front camera. While this technology inspires an increasing number of gaze-interaction applications, achieving consistent accuracy remains challenging due to dynamic user-device spatial relationships and varied motion conditions inherent in mobile contexts. This paper provides empirical evidence on how user mobility and behaviour affect mobile gaze tracking accuracy. We conduct two user studies collecting behaviour and gaze data under various motion conditions - from lying to maze navigation - and during different interaction tasks. Quantitative analysis has revealed behavioural regularities among daily tasks and identified head distance, head pose, and device orientation as key factors affecting accuracy, with errors increasing by up to 48.91% in dynamic conditions compared to static ones. These findings highlight the need for more robust, adaptive eye-tracking systems that account for head movements and device deflection to maintain accuracy across diverse mobile contexts.

As smart home devices proliferate, protecting the privacy of those who encounter the devices is of the utmost importance both within their own home and in other people's homes. In this study, we conducted a large-scale survey (N=1459) with primary users of and bystanders to smart home devices. While previous work has studied people's privacy experiences and preferences either as smart home primary users or as bystanders, there is a need for a deeper understanding of privacy experiences and preferences in different contexts and across different countries. Instead of classifying people as either primary users or bystanders, we surveyed the same participants across different contexts. We deployed our survey in four countries (Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and in two languages (English and Spanish). We found that participants were generally more concerned about devices in their own homes, but perceived video cameras-especially unknown ones-and usability as more concerning in other people's homes. Compared to male participants, female and non-binary participants had less control over configuration of devices and privacy settings-regardless of whether they were the most frequent user. Comparing countries, participants in Mexico were more likely to be comfortable with devices, but also more likely to take privacy precautions around them. We also make cross-contextual recommendations for device designers and policymakers, such as nudges to facilitate social interactions.

Despite various playful and educational tools have been developed to support children’s learning abilities, limited work focuses on tangible toys designed to improve and maintain children’s hygiene perception, habits and awareness, as well as fostering their collaboration and social abilities in home education contexts. We developed Awayvirus to address this research and design gap, aiming to help children gain hygiene habits knowledge through tangible blocks. Our findings indicate that a playful tangible interaction method can effectively increase children’s interest in learning and encourage parents to become actively involved in their children’s hygiene and health education. Additionally, Awayvirus seeks to build a collaborative bridge between children and parents, promoting communication strategies while mitigating the adverse effects of the challenging the post-pandemic period.KeywordsPlayful LearningTangibleChildren Hygiene Habits

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing number of interactive systems on handheld mobile devices which utilise gaze as a single or complementary interaction modality. This trend is driven by the enhanced computational power of these devices, higher resolution and capacity of their cameras, and improved gaze estimation accuracy obtained from advanced machine learning techniques, especially in deep learning. As the literature is fast progressing, there is a pressing need to review the state of the art, delineate the boundary, and identify the key research challenges and opportunities in gaze estimation and interaction. This paper aims to serve this purpose by presenting an end-to-end holistic view in this area, from gaze capturing sensors, to gaze estimation workflows, to deep learning techniques, and to gaze interactive applications.

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing number of interactive systems on handheld mobile devices which utilise gaze as a single or complementary interaction modality. This trend is driven by the enhanced computational power of these devices, higher resolution and capacity of their cameras, and improved gaze estimation accuracy obtained from advanced machine learning techniques, especially in deep learning. As the literature is fast progressing, there is a pressing need to review the state of the art, delineate the boundary, and identify the key research challenges and opportunities in gaze estimation and interaction. This paper aims to serve this purpose by presenting an end-to-end holistic view in this area, from gaze capturing sensors, to gaze estimation workflows, to deep learning techniques, and to gaze interactive applications.

Despite various playful and educational tools have been developed to support children's learning abilities, limited work focuses on tangible toys designed to improve and maintain children's hygiene perception, habits and awareness, as well as fostering their collaboration and social abilities in home education contexts. We developed \textbf{Awayvirus} to address this research and design gap, aiming to help children gain hygiene habits knowledge through tangible blocks. Our findings indicate that a playful tangible interaction method can effectively increase children's interest in learning and encourage parents to become actively involved in their children's hygiene and health education. Additionally, Awayvirus seeks to build a collaborative bridge between children and parents, promoting communication strategies while mitigating the adverse effects of the challenging the post-pandemic period.