How Developers (Don't) Think about Gender Privacy

Friday, June 24, 2022 - 10:05 am10:20 am

Elijah Bouma-Sims, Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract: 

Disclosing gender online can present serious accessibility and privacy concerns for members of marginalized groups. Despite these issues, non-inclusive (and likely unnecessary) gender disclosure forms are widespread in computing applications. Developers who implement gender disclosure forms may be unaware of the privacy implications of using gender in programming. I will present results from an interview study with developers and a complementary analysis of Reddit posts on developer target sub-forms. I will conclude by discussing how changes in software engineering education could improve the status quo in order to better respect users.

Elijah Bouma-Sims, Carnegie Mellon University

Hi! I'm Elijah and I am a PhD student in Societal Computing at the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. I completed a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in History from North Carolina State University in 2021. My research interests lie in usable security and privacy, particularly for marginalized groups.

BibTeX
@conference {280270,
author = {Elijah Bouma-Sims},
title = {How Developers (Don{\textquoteright}t) Think about Gender Privacy},
year = {2022},
address = {Santa Clara, CA},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}

Presentation Video