OurData: Understanding Family Privacy in Sensor-Rich Homes

The rise of IoT devices in domestic and shared home environments produces interpersonal data that implicates multiple family members, giving rise to privacy concerns that individual control alone cannot adequately address. We conducted vignette-based interviews with 10 families (N = 34) to examine how household members experience and negotiate sensing technologies in everyday family life. Participants understood family data not merely as aggregated personal data, but as a socially embedded and relationally meaningful form shaped by shared routines, roles, and caregiving practices. We present OurData as an analytical lens that emerged from these findings to capture how sensing data in family contexts is collectively produced, interpreted through relationships, and ethically implicated across household members. We further offer design guidance for ubiquitous sensing systems that support family privacy through relational accountability, interpersonal awareness, and context-sensitive negotiation of shared data.