Smart buildings operate based on the widespread adoption of sensors and devices to monitor the environment and provide services. This monitoring reveals data related to the occupants’ activities and behaviours. Privacy perception and preferences have been previously studied in smart homes, where users tend to partly own and control the infrastructure, but less so in the context of large smart buildings (e.g., in universities), where visitors and occupants might have limited choices on the deployment and usage of the sensors. In this study, we interview 20 participants to investigate their privacy perceptions, preferences and trade-offs they are willing to make in university smart buildings as their work or study place. We found some similarities between the users’ views on their privacy in university smart buildings and smart homes. We discovered that the users of smart buildings are in doubt about data practices in these buildings, and their privacy concerns are broadly shaped by their experiences and knowledge in other computing contexts. We also identified several desired services and recommendations for the future of smart buildings that contribute to the user’s sense of trust in such buildings. These findings are important and shed light on potential practices by the industry for the next generation of the infrastructures, systems and privacy and security features of such smart buildings.