The 4 th international symposium on ubiquitous VR Abstract— Recent advances in ubiquitous computing technologies have stimulated interest in the prospects of using context-aware applications in home environments for tele-healthcare purposes. However, very few research activities have addressed the issues related to the privacy of patients-at-home in such smart computing environments. We propose a theoretical framework that empowers the patient-at-home control over access to personal information, allows for fine-tuning of disclosed information, ensures that disclosure of information is dependent upon the context of the user and provides a default information disclosure mechanism under emergency situation (which can be adapted by user according to his needs). Index Terms— Privacy, Situation-aware, interactive systems, interactive computing I. INTRODUCTION he emerging advances in ubiquitous computing technologies offers the promise of significant improvements in the user’s quality of life. However, many critics have expressed concerns over the potential privacy breaches in smart computing environments [1]. Context-aware application developers need to provide the users with flexible means to control when, to whom and at what level of detail they can release their personal information to environment. To ensure the seemingly contradictory goals of privacy and quality-of-service, users must not just be able to restrict access to their personal information but also to fine-tune the details of disclosed information. Jason & Hong [2] describe granular control over release of context information as a desirable feature for privacy protection. Moreover, they also mention the need for special exceptions for emergency. Palen and Dourish [3] describe privacy management as a “dynamic response to circumstance rather than a static enforcement of rules”. Some previous works in the area of privacy protection allow for granular control over release of personal information under different situations in context-aware computing environments [1, 4, 5]. However, they fall short of mechanisms to assess the benefit users may gain by disclosing their personal information in and automate the disclosure process accordingly. In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for users in a smart home tele-health care systems to publicize their health information in relation to their privacy concerns. We provide This work was supported by Seondo Project of MIC, Korea. Both with GIST, Gwangju 500-712, S.Korea, ( e-mail: {urashid,wwoo}@gist.ac.kr ). users default privacy settings in relation to the expected benefit that is assessed on the basis of the context of the user and the health literacy of information receiver. The key features of our proposed framework are as follows: • Explicit user control over access to personal information • Granular control over disclosure of personal information • Disclosure of information according to user’s context • Default privacy policies in relation to user’s context (stress level, time) and health literacy of information receiver • User control to amend the default policies at his/her discretion (In parallel to MSN Internet Explorer which has default privacy settings but also provides users the flexibility to regulate these settings according to his/her own needs) II. PERSONAL INFORMATION DISCLOSURE MANAGEMENT Our theoretical framework helps user regulate disclosure of their personal information to different requesters under different situations. The constituents of the framework are described below: A. Personal Information Personal information consists of the data collected from the wearable physiological sensors attached to user’s body and stress level of user according to oriental medical science analysis. To determine stress level, physiological data is collected from the wearable sensors and then analyzed using oriental medical science techniques. Stress level information is classified into 5 levels (0-4) with level 4 being the most critical. The granularity stress level information is specified at different temporal levels as follows: • Minute • Day • Past Days In addition to that, data from physiological sensors is collected available at second level. B. Context of User The context of the user is signified by the current stress level of the user, and the time of disclosure. Personal Information Disclosure Management in Smart Home Tele health care Umar Rashid and Woontack Woo T 93