Call for Papers

Workshop Overview

Millions of users across different continents and countries are daily engaged with privacy and security tasks which are indispensable in modern information systems and services. Such tasks are commonly related to user authentication, human interaction proofs (e.g., captcha), privacy and security pop-up dialogs, setting privacy and security features within online user profiles, etc. Recent privacy and security incidents of famous online services have once more underpinned the necessity towards further investigating and improving current approaches and practices related to the design of efficient and effective privacy and security. In order to achieve this objective, one possible direction is related to providing adaptive and personalized characteristics to privacy- and security-related user tasks, given the diversity of the user characteristics (like cultural, cognitive, age, habits), the technology (like standalone, mobile, mixed-virtual-augmented reality, wearables) and interaction contexts of use (like being on the move, social settings, spatial limitations). Hence, adaptive and personalized privacy and security implies the ability of an interactive system or service to support its end-users, who are engaged in privacy- and/or security-related tasks, based on user models which describe in a holistic way what constitutes the user’s physical, technological and interaction context in which computation takes place.

APPS 2021 aims to bring together researchers and practitioners working on diverse topics related to understanding and improving the usability of privacy and security software and systems, by applying user modeling, adaptation and personalization principles.

Our special focus in 2021 will be on challenges and opportunities related to the Covid-19 outbreak for ensuring privacy and security of users' interactions in online systems (like challenges for online distance learning, e-Government, e-Commerce, the need for touchless authentication, etc.).

The workshop will address the following objectives:

  • increase our understanding and knowledge on supporting usable privacy and security interaction design through novel user modeling mechanisms and adaptive user interfaces;
  • discuss methods and techniques for understanding user attitudes and perceptions towards privacy and security issues in various application areas;
  • identify human-centered models for the design, development and evaluation of adaptive and personalized privacy and security systems;
  • discuss methods for evaluating the impact and added value of adaptation and personalization in privacy and security systems.

Topics of Interest

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Privacy and security in smart patient-centric healthcare systems
  • Adaptation and personalization approaches in usable privacy and security
  • Effects of human factors (e.g., cognition, personality, etc.) in privacy and security systems
  • Novel user interaction concepts and user interfaces for achieving usable security
  • Cultural diversity in usable privacy and security
  • Context-aware privacy and security
  • Adaptive usable security in various domains such as healthcare, IoT, automotive
  • Trust perceived in patient-centric healthcare systems
  • Perceived security and usability in patient-centric healthcare systems
  • Adaptive user authentication policies
  • Novel approaches to the design and evaluation of usable security systems
  • Lessons learned from the deployment and use of usable privacy and security features
  • Ethical considerations in adaptive and personalized privacy and security

Types of Papers

We invite authors to submit original papers describing their research, experiences and lessons learned, novel approaches, solutions, tools and services in all areas of adaptive and personalized privacy and security. We welcome both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Main aim is to shape novel and disruptive ideas and solutions for achieving a viable balance between usability, privacy and security, driven by user modeling and adaptivity technologies.

All workshop papers must contain original, previously unpublished, research work adhering the two publication types:

  • Full research papers (10 pages, incl. references), proposing new approaches, innovative methods and research findings. They should make substantial theoretical and empirical contributions to the research field.
  • Short research papers (7 pages, incl. references), presenting works in progress, lessons learnt, emerging or future research issues and directions on topics related to APPS.

Submission and Publication

Papers should be formatted according to the new workflow for ACM publications. The templates and instructions are available here: https://www.acm.org/publications/taps/word-template-workflow.

Authors should submit their papers as single-column. The templates are available in the links below:

All papers will undergo a peer review process by at least two expert reviewers to ensure a high standard of quality. Referees will consider originality, significance, technical soundness, clarity of exposition, and relevance to the workshop's topics.

Research papers should be submitted electronically as a single PDF file through the EasyChair submission system by selecting the track "Workshop-APPS" (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=acmumap2021).

Accepted papers might require a further revision in order to meet the requirements and page limits of the camera-ready format required by the ACM. Instructions for the preparation of the camera-ready versions of the papers will be provided after acceptance.

All accepted papers will be published by the ACM and will be available via the ACM Digital Library. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the conference and present the paper in the workshop.

For more information about the venue and registration please visit the ACM UMAP 2021 Web-site