Authenticate as You Go: From Exploring Smart Home Authentication with Daily Objects to Authenticating with Primary Tasks

Abstract

Smart home applications aim to increase convenience, yet often require authentication to protect sensitive data. This is non-trivial: effortful authentication contradicts intended convenience, the multitude of devices raises scalability issues, many devices lack suitable interfaces, and the presence of other inhabitants requires intentional and acceptable interactions. To address these issues, we explored new and creative authentication interactions with an interaction relabeling approach using everyday objects. We conducted six focus group workshops with 20 participants in a living room and a kitchen setting that resulted in a variety of creative authentication interactions with analogue and digital objects. Furthermore, participants created authentication interactions based on tasks that they have to or wish to perform anyway such as cleaning the kitchen—thus primary tasks. This led us to explore the option to transform authentication from being an additional, secondary task toward using primary tasks further in an online study with 194 participants. Relevant implications in terms of acceptable authentication task characteristics, user perceptions, arising security challenges, and psychological habit research are discussed.