Acceptance and Privacy Perceptions Toward Video-based Active and Assisted Living Technologies: Scoping Review

Abstract

Background: The aging society posits new socioeconomic challenges to which a potential solution is active and assisted living (AAL) technologies. Visual-based sensing systems are technologically among the most advantageous forms of AAL technologies in providing health and social care; however, they come at the risk of violating rights to privacy. With the immersion of video-based technologies, privacy-preserving smart solutions are being developed; however, the user acceptance research about these developments is not yet being systematized.

Objective: With this scoping review, we aimed to gain an overview of existing studies examining the viewpoints of older adults and/or their caregivers on technology acceptance and privacy perceptions, specifically toward video-based AAL technology.

Methods: A total of 22 studies were identified with a primary focus on user acceptance and privacy attitudes during a literature search of major databases. Methodological quality assessment and thematic analysis of the selected studies were executed and principal findings are summarized. The PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews) guidelines were followed at every step of this scoping review.

Results: Acceptance attitudes toward video-based AAL technologies are rather conditional, and are summarized into five main themes seen from the two end-user perspectives: caregiver and care receiver. With privacy being a major barrier to video-based AAL technologies, security and medical safety were identified as the major benefits across the studies.

Conclusions: This review reveals a very low methodological quality of the empirical studies assessing user acceptance of video-based AAL technologies. We propose that more specific and more end user- and real life-targeting research is needed to assess the acceptance of proposed solutions.

Keywords: assistive technology; disability; eHealth; life logging; older adults; privacy; technology; user acceptance; video monitoring; video-based active assisted living technologies; virtual assistance; virtual assistant; virtual reality.