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While many studies have looked at privacy properties of the Android and Google Play app ecosystem, comparatively much less is known about iOS and the Apple App Store, the most widely used ecosystem in the US. At the same time, there is…
Tracking is a highly privacy-invasive data collection practice that has been ubiquitous in mobile apps for many years due to its role in supporting advertising-based revenue models. In response, Apple introduced two significant changes with…
Third party tracking allows companies to identify users and track their behaviour across multiple digital services. This paper presents an empirical study of the prevalence of third-party trackers on 959,000 apps from the US and UK Google…
The rise of mobile apps has brought greater convenience and many options for users. However, many apps use analytics services to collect a wide range of user interaction data, with privacy policies often failing to reveal the types of…
As mobile app usage continues to rise, so does the generation of extensive user interaction data, which includes actions such as swiping, zooming, or the time spent on a screen. Apps often collect a large amount of this data and claim to…
Smartphones, the devices we carry everywhere with us, are being heavily tracked and have undoubtedly become a major threat to our privacy. As "tracking the trackers" has become a necessity, various static and dynamic analysis tools have…
Mobile app developers use paid advertising campaigns to acquire new users. Marketing managers decide where to spend and how much to spend based on the campaigns' performance. Apple's new privacy mechanisms have a profound impact on how…
Internet of Things (IoT) devices are becoming increasingly important. These devices are often resource-limited, hindering rigorous enforcement of security policies. Assessing the vulnerability of IoT devices is an important problem, but…
The rise of mobile apps has brought greater convenience and customization for users. However, many apps use analytics services to collect a wide range of user interaction data purportedly to improve their service, while presenting app users…
Internet of Things (IoT) systems are bundles of networked sensors and actuators that are deployed in an environment and act upon the sensory data that they receive. These systems, especially consumer electronics, have two main cooperating…
The digital age has brought a world of opportunity to children. Connectivity can be a game-changer for some of the world's most marginalized children. However, while legislatures around the world have enacted regulations to protect…
Contact tracing has historically been used to retard the spread of infectious diseases, but if it is exercised by hand in large-scale, it is known to be a resource-intensive and quite deficient process. Nowadays, digital contact tracing has…
Application markets provide a communication channel between app developers and their end-users in form of app reviews, which allow users to provide feedback about the apps. Although security and privacy in mobile apps are one of the biggest…
Zoom serves millions of users daily and allows third-party developers to integrate their apps with the Zoom client and reach those users. So far, these apps' privacy and security aspects, which can access rich audio-visual data (among…
`Tracking' is the collection of data about an individual's activity across multiple distinct contexts and the retention, use, or sharing of data derived from that activity outside the context in which it occurred. This paper aims to…
To help curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments and public health authorities around the world have launched a number of contact-tracing apps. Although contact tracing apps have received extensive attentions from the research…
Privacy policies are long, complex documents that end-users seldom read. Privacy labels aim to ameliorate these issues by providing succinct summaries of salient data practices. In December 2020, Apple began requiring that app developers…
Third-party services form an integral part of the mobile ecosystem: they allow app developers to add features such as performance analytics and social network integration, and to monetize their apps by enabling user tracking and targeted ad…
The prevalent engagement with mobile apps underscores the importance of understanding their data practices. Transparency plays a crucial role in this context, ensuring users to be informed and give consent before any data access occurs.…
Third-party tracking allows companies to collect users' behavioural data and track their activity across digital devices. This can put deep insights into users' private lives into the hands of strangers, and often happens without users'…