News reports are rife with accounts of data breaches, network security problems, and the dangers of keeping personal information online. Modern life, though, makes it impossible to avoid doing just that. It is almost no longer a choice whether we make purchases, communicate with our bank, apply for government services, or file our taxes online - it is the standard expectation. This research explores how people resolve the tension between these two realities and the practices that people have adopted to balance competing demands upon them. The goal is to understand how people manage security online, in two ways. The first is in the sense of engaging in technical fixes for potential problems; the second is how they come to terms with the potential risks and develop strategies, accommodations, and justifications for particular ways of working online. Using techniques from anthropology and sociology, this project sets out to understand online security as part of people's everyday lives. The research will have two major outcomes. The first to document the conditions of contemporary digital life, as a contribution to ongoing studies of the impact of digital technology. The second is to provide the basis on which new technologies can more adequately protect people's privacy and security online, and more easily integrate with people's online and offline practices.
SBE: Small: Security as an Everyday Practical Concern