In a 'digital by default' society, essential services must be accessed online. This opens users to digital deception not only from criminal fraudsters but from a range of actors in a marketised digital economy. Using grounded empirical research from northern England, we show how supposedly 'trusted' actors, such as governments,(re)produce the insecurities and harms that they seek to prevent. Enhanced by a weakening of social institutions amid a drive for efficiency and scale, this has built a constricted, unpredictable digital channel. We conceptualise this as a "snipers' alley". Four key snipers articulated by participants' lived experiences are examined: 1) Governments; 2) Business; 3) Criminal Fraudsters; and 4) Friends and Family to explore how snipers are differentially experienced and transfigure through this constricted digital channel. We discuss strategies to re-configure the alley, and how crafting and adopting opportunity models can enable more equitable forms of security for all.

In a study of everyday digital identity, a set of primary drawings were made by researchers in online focus group settings as a way to capture our participants’ spoken narratives of hyper-[in]security in the usages of digital identity. In a second stage of work, key extracts from the drawings were collaged using the method described in the paper, allowing an exploratory qualitative cartography of hyper-[in]security to be constructed. These secondary collages group the [in]securities thematically without losing essential contextual information. Samples of our data are given, to illustrate the contribution of the method to experience-centred design, with special reference to security from the perspective of marginalised and underserved communities. We discuss our method as a step towards multidimensional cognitive mapping of the salient features of our participants’ narratives about hyper-[in]security, potentially paving the way for further world building explorations of digital identity futures.

A successful digital society is, in part, predicated on people having secure access to digitally-delivered services when they need it. It has long been recognised that parts of society are not able to access digital services without assistance, often as a result of economic precarity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of third and voluntary sector organisations in providing assisted digital access has come to the fore. As access to essential everyday services moved to digital-only and family and friendship networks of support became disrupted by the pandemic, for many, voluntary and third sector organisations were the source of digital assistance to claim welfare, pay bills, take part in education and purchase food. Our study explores the types of assisted digital access that voluntary and third sector organisations have provided thus far during the COVID-19 pandemic. We capture the dimensions of this assistance and evaluate the steps such organisations take to ensure that this access is safe for both the assister and assisted. From these findings we set out a security strategy with supporting design principles that combines digital security with human security in a security approach we term 'positive-first'.

Whilst user- and people-centered design are accepted routes for digital services, they are less commonly used in the design of technologies that control access to data and the security of information. The ubiquity of both technology and programmes such as "digital by default" as well as the weaving of digital systems into the everyday fabric of society, create an environment in which people and technology become enmeshed. Such an environment might be termed "post-digital" and its security is dependent on a people-centered approach to its design. In this paper we present a study that uses critical design techniques coupled with critical security analysis to examine how security might be approached in a post-digital context. We call for a paradigm shift towards a people-centered security practice and using a case study then make practical recommendations as to how this shift might be achieved.

Critical approaches to smart technologies have emerged in HCI that question the conditions necessary for smart technologies to benefit people. Smart services rely on a relation of trust and sense of security between people and technology requiring a more expansive definition of security. Using established design methods, we worked with two residents' groups to critically explore and rethink smart services in the home and city. From our data analysis, we derive insights about perceptions and understandings of trust, privacy and security of smart devices, and identify how technological security needs to work in concert with social and relational forms of security for smart services to be effective. We conclude with an orientation for HCI that focuses on designing services for and with smart people and things.

This paper examines the use of visualisations in the field of information security and in particular focuses on the practice of information security risk assessment. We examine the current roles of information security visualisations and place these roles in the wider information visualisation discourse. We present an analytic lens which divides visualisations into three categories: journalistic, scientific and critical visualisations. We then present a case study that uses these three categories of visualisations to further support information security practice.