Understanding the Physical Safety, Security, and Privacy Concerns of People with Visual Impairments

With the help of various assistive devices, people with visual impairments are able to live their lives with greater independence both online and offline. But significant work remains to understand and address their safety, security, and privacy concerns, especially in the physical, offline world. For example, people with visual impairments are particularly vulnerable to physical assault and theft, shoulder-surfing attacks, and being overheard during private conversations. The authors conducted two sets of interviews -- one in a small-town setting and the other in a larger metropolitan area -- with 33 participants with visual impairments to identify their physical safety, security, and privacy issues and find out how they manage these concerns and how assistive technologies could help alleviate them. The resulting research proposes design considerations for camera-based devices that would help people with visual impairments monitor for potential threats around them.