EECS Faculty Candidate Seminar: Qiurong Song

Misaligned Protections: Privacy and Safety for At-Risk Populations

Abstract

Digital technologies are integral to everyday life, but they can also introduce or amplify harms, particularly for at-risk populations who rely on them. In this talk, I examine this challenge through two strands of research at the intersection of human-computer interaction and security and privacy. First, I investigate reproductive health privacy for people assigned female at birth through studies of community discussions, company communications, and users’ understanding and use of privacy protections. Second, I investigate child safety on user-generated game platforms by examining game designs and the experiences and practices of creators, children, and parents. Bringing these studies together, I discuss recurring misalignments among available protections, the conditions that produce risks, and the needs of people expected to manage them. These misalignments can have particularly serious consequences for at-risk populations. I conclude by outlining approaches to privacy and safety that support people’s agency while addressing the sociotechnical arrangements that produce risks and distribute responsibility.

Biography

Qiurong Song is a PhD candidate in informatics at the College of Information Sciences and Technology at The Pennsylvania State University, advised by Assistant Professor Xinning Gui and Associate Professor Yubo Kou. Her research lies at the intersection of human-computer interaction (HCI) and security and privacy, with a focus on at-risk populations. She examines how technological design, organizational and individual practices, and social conditions shape privacy and safety in reproductive health technologies and user-generated game platforms. Her research appears in leading HCI and security and privacy venues, such as CHI, CSCW, IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, and SOUPS. Her recognitions include a CHI 2023 Best Paper Honorable Mention and the 2026 Graduate Research Excellence Award (First Place) from Penn State’s Department of Human-Centered Computing and Social Informatics. She was also runner-up for the 2026 PhD Award for Research Excellence in Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology.