Understanding User Perceptions of Security and Privacy for Group Chat: A Survey of Users in the US and UK

Abstract

Secure messaging tools are an integral part of modern society. While there is a significant body of secure messaging research generally, there is a lack of information regarding users’ security and privacy perceptions and requirements for secure group chat. To address this gap, we conducted a survey of 996 respondents in the US and UK. The results of our study show that group chat presents important security and privacy challenges, some of which are not present in one-to-one chat. For example, users need to be able to manage and monitor group membership, establish trust for new group members, and filter content that they share in different chat contexts. Similarly, we find that the sheer volume of notifications that occur in group chat makes it extremely likely that users ignore important security or privacy notifications. We also find that respondents lack mechanisms for determining which tools are secure and instead rely on non-technical strategies for protecting their privacy—for example, self-filtering what they post and carefully tracking group membership. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations on how to improve the security and usability of secure group chat.