Call for Papers: Usable Security and Privacy (USEC) Symposium 2022

Please note that this workshop has been rescheduled to Thursday, 28 April 2022.

The Usable Security and Privacy (USEC) Symposium 2022 serves as an international forum for research and discussion in the area of human factors in security and privacy. USEC is a symposium with proceedings.

USEC 2022 will be held on April 28 2022 in conjunction with NDSS at the Catamaran Resort Hotel & Spa in San Diego, California.

It is the aim of USEC to contribute to an increase of the scientific quality of research in human factors in security and privacy. To this end, we encourage replication studies to validate previous research findings. Papers in these categories should be clearly marked as such and will not be judged against regular submissions on novelty. Rather, they will be judged based on scientific quality and value to the community. We also encourage reports of faded experiments. They must highlight the lessons learned and provide recommendations on how to avoid falling into the same traps.

We invite submissions from academia, government, and industry presenting novel research on all aspects of human-centric security and privacy. We welcome a variety of research methods, including empirical research and design research.

Areas of Interest

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • innovative security or privacy functionality and design
  • new applications of existing models or technology
  • usability evaluations of new or existing security or privacy features and lessons learned
  • security testing of new or existing usability features
  • psychological, sociological, and economic aspects of security and privacy
  • research and design methodologies for human-centric security and privacy research
  • reports of replicating previously published studies and experiments
  • reports of failed usable privacy/security studies or experiments, with the focus on the lessons learned from such experience
  • inclusive security and privacy
  • ethics in human-centric security and privacy research

All submissions must clearly relate to the human aspects of security or privacy. Papers on security or privacy that do not address usability or human factors will not be considered. Like wise, papers on usability or human factors that do not address security or privacy will not be considered. The determination of whether a paper is within scope will be solely at the discretion of the program committee chairs.

For accepted papers, at least one author must attend USEC 2022 (either physically or virtually).

Submission Instructions

All submissions must be original work; authors must clearly document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. All papers should be written in English. The text must be in Times font, 10-point or larger, with 11-point or larger line spacing. Use the NDSS USEC format found at NDSS Symposium, USEC Symposium, and NDSS Workshop 2022 Templates page. We are looking for submissions of 5 to 10 pages, excluding references and supplementary materials. We encourage authors to submit papers of appropriate length for the research contribution. If your research contribution only requires 5-7 pages, please only submit 5-7 pages (plus references). Shorter papers with be reviewed like any other paper and not penalized. Papers shorter than 5 pages or longer than 10 pages (excluding references) will not be considered.

Submitting supplementary material that adds depth to the contribution and/or contributes to the submission’s replicability is strongly encouraged. Supplemental material must be linked to in the paper in an anonymous way as we cannot support direct upload to the submission system.

Reviewing will be double blind. Author names and affiliations should not appear in the paper. The authors should make a reasonable effort not to reveal their identities or institutional affiliation in the text, figures, photos, links, or other data that is contained in the paper. Authors’ prior work should be preferably referred to in the third person; if this is not feasible, the references should be blinded. Submissions that violate these requirements will be rejected without review. The list of authors cannot be changed after the acceptance decision is made unless approved by the Program Chairs.

Authors and Program Committee members are required to indicate any conflict of interest and its nature. Advisors and those that they are advising, as well as authors and PC members with an institutional relationship are considered to share a conflict of interest. Professional collaborations (irrespective of whether they resulted in publication or funding) that occurred in the past 2 years and close personal relationships equally constitute a conflict of interest. PC members, including chairs, that have a conflict of interest with a paper, will be entirely excluded from the evaluation of that paper.

The submission site is https://usec22.hotcrp.com

Important Dates

  • Submission deadline:
    December 3 2021 AoE
    December 4 2021, 6:59:59AM EST
    December 4 2021, 3:59:59AM PST
  • Decision notification: January 24 2022