Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• How Could Equality and Data Protection Law Shape AI Fairness for People with Disabilities?

  Reuben Binns, Reuben Kirkham (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This interdisciplinary paper examines how UK equality law and EU data protection law (GDPR) intersect with AI fairness for people with disabilities (PWD). The authors argue that AI fairness for PWD requires a fundamentally different approach than for…

  • AI fairness
  • disability discrimination
  • data protection
  • GDPR
  • equality law
  • algorithmic bias
  • machine learning
  • human rights
  • disability rights
  • automated decision-making
  • legal framework

• Privacy Concerns for Visual Assistance Technologies

  Abigale Stangl, Kristina Shiroma, Nathan Davis, Bo Xie, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Leah Findlater, Danna Gurari (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This comprehensive study examines privacy concerns of blind users when sharing images and videos with visual assistance technologies (VATs) like Aira, Be My Eyes, and Seeing AI. The research addresses a fundamental tension: blind people must share vi…

  • visual impairment
  • privacy
  • visual assistance technology
  • artificial intelligence
  • remote sighted assistance
  • image description
  • privacy policy
  • data protection

• Visual Content Considered Private by People Who are Blind

  Abigale Stangl, Kristina Shiroma, Bo Xie, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Danna Gurari (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This paper presents the first empirical study investigating what types of visual content people who are blind consider private, in the context of their use of Visual Interpreters or Description Services (VIDS) — services like Seeing AI, Aira, Be My E…

  • visual accessibility
  • blindness and low vision
  • privacy
  • computer vision
  • artificial intelligence
  • ethics
  • assistive technology
  • data protection

• Regulating Personal Cameras for Disabled People and People with Deafblindness: Implications for HCI and Accessible Computing

  Sarah L. Woodin, Arthur Theil (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This experience paper examines the intersection of social policy, privacy regulation, and assistive technology design, focusing on the case of personal cameras for people with deafblindness. Drawing from the EU-funded SUITCEYES project (2018-2021), t…

  • deafblindness
  • wearable cameras
  • face recognition
  • privacy
  • data protection
  • social policy
  • assistive technology
  • ethics
  • AI fairness
  • GDPR

• "Dump it, Destroy it, Send it to Data Heaven": Blind People's Expectations for Visual Privacy in Visual Assistance Technologies

  Abigale Stangl, Emma Sadjo, Pardis Emami-Naeini, Yang Wang, Danna Gurari, Leah Findlater (2023) — Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the visual privacy expectations of 16 totally blind individuals who use visual assistance technologies (VATs) such as Aira, Be My Eyes, Seeing AI, and Envision AI. VATs provide blind users access to visual information by conne…

  • visual privacy
  • blind users
  • visual assistance technology
  • privacy expectations
  • data protection
  • AI ethics
  • camera-based assistive technology
  • obfuscation

• Decoding the Privacy Policies of Assistive Technologies

  Kirk Crawford, Yi Xuan Khoo, Asha Kumar, Helena Mentis, Foad Hamidi (2024) — Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper systematically analyzes the privacy policies of 18 assistive technologies available in the United States, examining how these companies communicate data collection and processing practices to their users. The researchers used the PRISMA (P…

  • privacy
  • assistive technology
  • policy analysis
  • data protection
  • informed consent
  • disability rights