How Experts Personalize Privacy & Security Advice for At-Risk Users
Authors: Wentao Guo (University of Maryland), Alexander Yang (University of Maryland), Nathan Malkin (New Jersey Institute of Technology), Michelle Mazurek (University of Maryland)
Volume: 2026
Issue: 1
Pages: 321–337
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56553/popets-2026-0017
Abstract: Prioritizing privacy and security advice is a particular challenge for at-risk users, requiring difficult judgment calls with the risk of harmful consequences. We interviewed 18 experts who tailor privacy and security advice for at-risk users in personalized consultations and trainings, to understand their strategies and challenges. We identify five main objectives that experts balance as they differentiate the content and delivery of advice, and we explore how different types of context about clients are used to achieve those objectives. We also describe four methods used to ascertain this context, which have different trade-offs regarding priorities such as using time efficiently and managing the reliability of information. Through this, we especially focus on the challenges and rationales that motivate providers to follow particular practices. By surfacing choices that experts make about advice differentiation and by identifying areas for researchers and technologists to assist experts, our work can inform next steps in research, tool design, and ultimately better advice for at-risk users.
Keywords: at-risk users, advice, privacy, security, digital safety
Copyright in PoPETs articles are held by their authors. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
