Hybrid Seminar Invitation: Supporting Privacy in Networked Environments: Lessons from the Facebook Saga and Open Challenges for the GitHub Sequel

Seminar Abstract:
Online Social Networks (OSNs) like Facebook or Instagram have redefined and blurred people’s privacy boundaries by creating spaces where they can connect seamlessly and share personal information with large (and sometimes untrusted) audiences. Since their disruptive emergence in the late 2000s, researchers have sought to characterise users’ privacy behaviour and provide means for supporting self-disclosure practices in these virtual communities. This has resulted in valuable knowledge and actionable information for designing user-centred technologies seeking to improve the privacy and data protection standards of OSNs. Alongside, Social Coding Platforms (SCPs) like GitHub have changed the landscape of modern software development thanks to their collaborative coding and version control affordances. Like in OSNs, users of SCPs (namely software practitioners) can create a profile to connect, co-create, and disseminate content, often in the form of software repositories. However, despite the similarities, the privacy concerns and behaviour of SCP users have not received as much attention as those of OSNs.

In this talk, Nicolás shared some lessons I have learned while investigating self-disclosure practices in OSNs and elaborate on how they can help us shape a research agenda for privacy in SCPs. 

Thanks to Nicolás Díaz Ferreyra, (currently on secondment from Hamburg University of Technology to RMIT University through the EU-funded OpenInnoTrain project), for a fabulous talk/seminar this morning on ‘Supporting #privacy in Networked Environments: Lessons from the Facebook Saga and Open Challenges for the GitHub Sequel’. Focusing on ‘Human Aspects’ in the complex, multifaceted landscape of #Privacy #research, we heard about: Privacy #nudges as a way of mitigating #bias pushing users into a direction of common good; Privacy Calculus Theory; Risk Patterning; Constructs; and so much more!

This was a great instrument to establish connections and facilitate #knowledgeexchange between Nicolás and researchers within our RMIT University ecosystem. This was also an opportunity for his three local hosts from across disciplines, RMIT College of Business and Law – Malka N. Halgamuge, Abebe Diro (PhD), and RMIT STEM College – Mojtaba Shahin, to meet for the first time. Plans are underway for each of Nicholás’s three hosts to work independently with him and as a result of the seminar this morning, initial conversations have started around potential cross-disciplinary collaborations on aligned research areas.

When:11am-12pm, Monday 11 September 2023 (Seminar / Q&A)
Where:​​​​​​​

• In-person – RMIT Building 80, Level 7, Room 029 (Register for in-person attendance here)
• ​​​​​​​Online – via Teams (Register for online attendance here)

International Guest Speaker:Nicolás E. Díaz Ferreyra, Senior Researcher and Lecturer at the Institute of Software Security, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany | OpenInnoTrain Secondee

Co-facilitators:

• Dr. Malka Halgamuge, Senior Lecturer, Cybersecurity, School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain, RMIT
• Mojtaba Shahin, Lecturer (Assistant Professor), Cloud, Systems & Security, School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain, RMIT

• Dr Abebe Diro, Lecturer, (Assistant Professor), Cybersecurity, School of Accounting, Information Systems and Supply Chain, RMIT

Nicolás’ bio:
Nicolás E. Díaz Ferreyra is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Software Security of Hamburg University of Technology, Germany. His research stands at the intersection of human-computer interaction and privacy engineering, with a special focus on the application of AI and “digital nudging” to cybersecurity decision-making processes. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Duisburg-Essen, where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow and coordinator of the DFG-funded research training group “User-Centred Social Media". He has taken part in several European projects, including “PDP4E: Methods and tools for GDPR compliance through privacy and data-protection engineering" and “AssureMOSS: Assurance and certification in secure Multi-party Open Software and Services". He is a co-organiser of the AiOfAi workshop series on adverse impacts and collateral effects of AI technologies co-located with IJCAI and, since 2023, an associate member of the Research Institute for Socio-Technical Cybersecurity (RISCS) at the University of Bristol.

Acknowledgements:OpenInnoTrain Project, is a global network of researchers and industry practitioners across Europe and Australia for promoting the translation of research between university-industry through cooperation and Open Innovation in the sectors of: FinTech, Industry 4.0, CleanTech, FoodTech. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 823971.

RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia – Global Business Innovation Enabling Impact Platform (Director, Professor Anne-Laure Mention).

Hamburg University of Technology