Selective Notification Obfuscation on Lock Screens
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Solution Overview
Problem
Mobile device lock-screen notifications often force users to choose between protecting sensitive information and having informative notifications, as obscuring content reduces the utility of notifications for the user.
Innovation Solution
A method that generates filtered notification content by obfuscating sensitive portions of event content while maintaining non-obfuscated information relevant to the user, displayed on a lock screen during restricted-access mode, using filter criteria and entity annotators to identify and obscure potentially sensitive information.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If lock-screen notifications display full event content, then notification utility is improved, but information security deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The notification content is segmented into sensitive portions and non-sensitive portions. The system applies filter criteria to identify sensitive event content (such as message bodies, email subjects, or calendar details) and separates them from non-sensitive content (such as sender names or event types). This segmentation allows the notification to display useful information while obscuring sensitive details.
Solution Approach 2:
Different portions of the notification content are treated with different quality levels. Sensitive portions are obfuscated while non-sensitive portions are displayed in full. This local differentiation enables the notification to maintain overall usefulness while protecting specific sensitive information from unauthorized viewing.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If lock-screen notifications obscure all content, then information security is improved, but notification utility deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of applying full obfuscation to all notification content, the system applies partial obfuscation only to sensitive portions. This partial action approach maintains the protective function while preserving the informational utility of the notification by leaving non-sensitive content visible.
3Loss of information
If lock-screen notifications display sender and message content, then notification informativeness is improved, but security risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts sensitive information from the notification content and removes or obscures it. By taking out sensitive portions (such as message bodies or detailed event information) and displaying only non-sensitive portions (such as sender identifiers or event categories), the notification remains informative while reducing security risks.
Data Source
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AI summary
Methods and systems may help to provide filtered notification content that provides useful information to the intended recipient, but does not provide the same information to an unauthorized viewer. To do so, when an application event occurs, filtered notification content may be generated. The filtered notification content may combine a non-obfuscated portion of the event content and an obfuscated portion of the event content, such that when viewed by an intended recipient, the filtered notification content provides implicit information that the device expects the particular user to understand based on the user's own experience and/or other factors.