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Nowadays many people store photos in smartphones. Many of the photos contain sensitive, private information, such as a photocopy of driver's license and credit card. An arising privacy concern is with the unauthorized accesses to such…
Third-party applications have become an essential part of today's online ecosystem, enhancing the functionality of popular platforms. However, the intensive data exchange underlying their proliferation has increased concerns about…
We conducted a 4-week field study with 101 smartphone users who self-organized into 22 small groups of family, friends, and neighbors to use ``CO-oPS,'' a mobile app for co-managing mobile privacy and security. We differentiated between…
Android's permission system is designed to balance usability with informed consent, yet two legacy mechanisms still undermine that balance in Android 16: (i) permission groups that silently auto-grant new permissions within a group after a…
WhatsApp messenger is arguably the most popular mobile app available on all smart-phones. Over one billion people worldwide for free messaging, calling, and media sharing use it. In April 2016, WhatsApp switched to a default end-to-end…
Software systems are ubiquitous, and their use is ingrained in our everyday lives. They enable us to get in touch with people quickly and easily, support us in gathering information, and help us perform our daily tasks. In return, we…
Virtual reality (VR) apps can harvest a wider range of user data than web/mobile apps running on personal computers or smartphones. Existing law and privacy regulations emphasize that VR developers should inform users of what data are…
Mobile gaming apps increasingly rely on third-party Software Development Kits SDKs for advertising, analytics, attribution, and user engagement, potentially introducing privacy exposure beyond traditional permission based risks. Existing…
Mobile apps frequently use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) and WiFi scanning permissions to discover nearby devices like peripherals and connect to WiFi Access Points (APs). However, wireless interfaces also serve as a covert proxy for…
Users need to configure default apps when they first start using their devices. The privacy configurations of the default apps do not always match what users think they have initially enabled. We first systematically evaluated the privacy…
Employees are often required to use Enterprise Security Software ("ESS") on corporate and personal devices. ESS products collect users' activity data including users' location, applications used, and websites visited - operating from…
IoT Trigger-Action Platforms (TAPs) typically offer coarse-grained permission controls. Even when fine-grained controls are available, users are likely overwhelmed by the complexity of setting privacy preferences. This paper contributes to…
Third party apps that work on top of personal cloud services such as Google Drive and Dropbox, require access to the user's data in order to provide some functionality. Through detailed analysis of a hundred popular Google Drive apps from…
Android devices are equipped with many pre-installed applications which have the capability of tracking and monitoring users. Although applications coming pre-installed pose a great danger to user security and privacy, they have received…
We present an analysis of 12 million instances of privacy-relevant reviews publicly visible on the Google Play Store that span a 10 year period. By leveraging state of the art NLP techniques, we examine what users have been writing about…
In the absence of data protection measures, software applications lead to privacy breaches, posing threats to end-users and software organisations. Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) are technical measures that protect personal data,…
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…
With the rapid growth of mobile apps, users' concerns about their privacy have become increasingly prominent. Android app logs serve as crucial computer resources, aiding developers in debugging and monitoring the status of Android apps,…
Within the thriving mobile app ecosystem ecosystem, a subset of apps provides illicit services such as gambling and pornography to pursue economic gains, collectively referred to as "underground economy apps". While previous studies have…
Privacy policies have become the most critical approach to safeguarding individuals' privacy and digital security. To enhance their presentation and readability, researchers propose the concept of contextual privacy policies (CPPs), aiming…