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Despite over 3.5 million Android apps and 200+ million Android Auto-compatible vehicles, only a few hundred apps support Android Auto due to platform-specific compliance requirements. Android Auto mandates service-based architectures in…
Smartphone technology has drastically improved over the past decade. These improvements have seen the creation of specialized health applications, which offer consumers a range of health-related activities such as tracking and checking…
With the development of foundation AI technologies, task-executable voice assistants (VAs) have become more popular, enhancing user convenience and expanding device functionality. Android task-executable VAs are applications that are…
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…
Mobile apps are used in a variety of health settings, from apps that help providers, to apps designed for patients, to health and fitness apps designed for the general public. These apps ask the user for, and then collect and leak a wealth…
Since the onset of the COVID-19's global spread we have been following the debate around contact tracing apps -- the tech-enabled response to the pandemic. As corporations, academics, governments, and civil society discuss the right way to…
As e-commerce continues to expand, the urgency for stronger privacy and security measures becomes increasingly critical, particularly on platforms frequented by younger users who are often less aware of potential risks. In our analysis of…
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…
With the continuous growth in the usage of Android apps, ensuring their security has become critically important. An increasing number of malicious apps adopt anti-analysis techniques to evade security measures. Although some research has…
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…
The proper use of Android app permissions is crucial to the success and security of these apps. Users must agree to permission requests when installing or running their apps. Despite official Android platform documentation on proper…
Smartphones hold important private information, yet users routinely expose this information to questionable applications written by developers they know nothing about. Users may be tempted to think of smartphones as old-style dumb phones,…
The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the development of smartphone applications to assist disease management. Many "corona apps" require widespread adoption to be effective, which has sparked public debates about the privacy, security, and…
Android employs a permission framework that empowers users to either accept or deny sharing their private data (for example, location) with an app. However, many apps tend to crash when they are denied permission, leaving users no choice…
Android apps can hold secret strings of themselves such as cloud service credentials or encryption keys. Leakage of such secret strings can induce unprecedented consequences like monetary losses or leakage of user private information. In…
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…
As smartphones and smartphone applications are widely used in a healthcare context (e.g., remote healthcare), these devices and applications may need to comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996. In…
With smartphone technologies enhanced way of interacting with the world around us, it has also been paving the way for easier access to our private and personal information. This has been amplified by the existence of numerous embedded…
Privacy, security, and accessibility, like ethical concerns in mobile applications (a.k.a. apps), commonly subsumed under non-functional requirements, are generally reported by users through app reviews available in app stores. However,…
In the age of ubiquitous technologies, security- and privacy-focused choices have turned out to be a significant concern for individuals and organizations. Risks of such pervasive technologies are extensive and often misaligned with user…