Ubiquitous Computing and Privacy in the Workplace

Hospitals are some of the first locations and nurses the first employees to experience and interact with real world ubiquitous computing applications. The deployment of ubiquitous computing in the workplace raises many privacy questions. Technical systems like the nurse locator badge system installed in hospitals possess many of the properties of ubiquitous computing. To better comprehend the privacy concerns and experiences of nurses using the locator badge system, we collected information from nurses through online discussion groups, interviews, focus groups, the badges themselves (technology), the policies governing data collection and use of the system, and the actual use of the system. Information about the experiences and reactions of the nurses were valuable in shaping our research and understanding of privacy in this context.