Related papers: Understanding Privacy Over-collection in WeChat Su…
Voice assistants have become quite popular lately while in parallel they are an important part of smarthome systems. Through their voice assistants, users can perform various tasks, control other devices and enjoy third party services. The…
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…
As technology and technology companies have grown in power, ubiquity, and societal influence, some companies -- and notably some mobile apps -- have come to be perceived as privacy threats. Prior work has considered how various factors…
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…
Access to privacy-sensitive information on Android is a growing concern in the mobile community. Albeit Google Play recently introduced some privacy guidelines, it is still an open problem to soundly verify whether apps actually comply with…
In December of 2020, Apple started to require app developers to self-report privacy label annotations on their apps indicating what data is collected and how it is used.To understand the adoption and shifts in privacy labels in the App…
Social Coding Platforms (SCPs) like GitHub have become central to modern software engineering thanks to their collaborative and version-control features. Like in mainstream Online Social Networks (OSNs) such as Facebook, users of SCPs are…
Mobile phones enable the collection of a wealth of private information, from unique identifiers (e.g., email addresses), to a user's location, to their text messages. This information can be harvested by apps and sent to third parties,…
As the adoption of smart devices continues to permeate all aspects of our lives, user privacy concerns have become more pertinent than ever. Privacy policies outline the data handling practices of these devices. Prior work in the domains of…
In mobile applications, Pop-up window (PoW) plays a crucial role in improving user experience, guiding user actions, and delivering key information. Unfortunately, the excessive use of PoWs severely degrades the user experience. These PoWs…
Our research aims to highlight and alleviate the complex tensions around online safety, privacy, and smartphone usage in families so that parents and teens can work together to better manage mobile privacy and security-related risks. We…
Privacy policies are intended to inform users about how software systems collect and handle data, yet they often remain vague or incomplete. This paper presents an empirical study of patterns in log-related statements within privacy…
Many Android applications collect data from users. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires vendors to faithfully disclose which data their apps collect. This task is complicated because many apps use…
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…
Mobile apps are predominantly integrated with cloud services to benefit from enhanced functionalities. Adopting authentication using secrets such as API keys is crucial to ensure secure mobile-cloud interactions. However, developers often…
Mobile mini-programs in WeChat have gained significant popularity since their debut in 2017, reaching a scale similar to that of Android apps in the Play Store. Like Google, Tencent, the provider of WeChat, offers APIs to support the…
Mobile applications (hereafter, apps) collect a plethora of information regarding the user behavior and his device through third-party analytics libraries. However, the collection and usage of such data raised several privacy concerns,…
As Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more integrated into everyday life, AI-powered chatbot mobile applications are increasingly adopted across industries, particularly in the healthcare domain. These chatbots offer…
Bystander privacy in smart homes has been widely studied in Western contexts, yet it remains underexplored in non-Western countries such as China. In this study, we analyze 49 Chinese smart home apps using a mixed-methods approach,…
Privacy regulations protect and promote the privacy of individuals by requiring mobile apps to provide a privacy policy that explains what personal information is collected and how these apps process this information. However, developers…