[Paper Review] Privacy Research with Marginalized Groups: What We Know, What's Needed, and What's Next

Shruti Sannon, Andrea Forte|arXiv (Cornell University)|Jun 30, 2022

Privacy, Security, and Data Protection4 citations

TL;DR

This paper reviews 88 privacy studies (2010–2020) on marginalized groups across HCI, communication, and privacy venues, introducing the Privacy Responses and Costs framework to map privacy strategies and their disproportionate burdens. It identifies under-researched areas like race, methodological gaps, and calls for shared ethical research practices to advance equitable privacy design.

ABSTRACT

People who are marginalized experience disproportionate harms when their privacy is violated. Meeting their needs is vital for developing equitable and privacy-protective technologies. In response, research at the intersection of privacy and marginalization has acquired newfound urgency in the HCI and social computing community. In this literature review, we set out to understand how researchers have investigated this area of study. What topics have been examined, and how? What are the key findings and recommendations? And, crucially, where do we go from here? Based on a review of papers on privacy and marginalization published between 2010-2020 across HCI, Communication, and Privacy-focused venues, we make three main contributions: (1) we identify key themes in existing work and introduce the Privacy Responses and Costs framework to describe the tensions around protecting privacy in marginalized contexts, (2) we identify understudied research topics (e.g., race) and other avenues for future work, and (3) we characterize trends in research practices, including the under-reporting of important methodological choices, and provide suggestions for establishing shared best practices for this growing research area.

Motivation & Objective

• To understand the current state of privacy research focused on marginalized groups, particularly in HCI, communication, and privacy-focused venues.
• To identify key themes, findings, and methodological practices in existing research on privacy and marginalization.
• To uncover under-researched topics such as race, structural marginalization, and policy impacts.
• To address gaps in research practices, including under-reporting of methodological choices and ethical considerations.
• To propose shared best practices for future research, emphasizing harm reduction and ethical rigor in studies involving vulnerable populations.

Proposed method

• Conducted a systematic literature review of 2,823 privacy-related papers from 2010–2020 across SIGCHI, Communication journals, and privacy/security venues.
• Filtered for relevance using keywords 'privacy' in titles, abstracts, or keywords, and manually assessed for focus on marginalized identities.
• Identified 88 papers that explicitly examine privacy in the context of marginalization based on race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, socioeconomic status, etc.
• Developed the Privacy Responses and Costs framework through thematic analysis of privacy strategies and their consequences for marginalized individuals.
• Analyzed research practices across the dataset, focusing on methodological transparency, representation, and ethical reporting.
• Provided recommendations for shared best practices, including harm-minimizing protocols and inclusive research design.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the dominant themes and privacy-related behaviors studied in research on marginalized groups?
• RQ2 How do privacy responses among marginalized individuals differ from those of non-marginalized groups, and what are the associated costs?
• RQ3 What methodological gaps and ethical shortcomings are evident in current research on privacy and marginalization?
• RQ4 Which topics related to marginalization remain under-researched, such as race or structural inequities?
• RQ5 What shared best practices can be established to improve the rigor, transparency, and ethical integrity of future research in this domain?

Key findings

• The Privacy Responses and Costs framework identifies 10 distinct privacy responses used by marginalized individuals, each associated with specific social, psychological, or material costs.
• Research on race as a dimension of marginalization remains significantly underexplored despite its central role in systemic privacy harms.
• Many studies under-report critical methodological choices, including recruitment strategies, power dynamics, and ethical safeguards, limiting reproducibility and accountability.
• There is a notable lack of methodological diversity, with qualitative approaches dominating and limited use of quantitative or participatory methods.
• Structural aspects of marginalization—such as systemic discrimination and institutional power imbalances—are under-analyzed in privacy research.
• The review identifies a growing but fragmented research community with inconsistent ethical standards, highlighting the urgent need for shared research norms and protocols.