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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…
Digital lending applications, commonly referred to as loan apps, have become a primary channel for microcredit in emerging markets. However, many of these apps demand excessive permissions and misuse sensitive user data for coercive…
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,…
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is considered as the benchmark in the European Union (EU) for privacy and data protection standards. Since before its entry into force in 2018, substantial research has been conducted in the…
Privacy nutrition labels provide a way to understand an app's key data practices without reading the long and hard-to-read privacy policies. Recently, the app distribution platforms for iOS(Apple) and Android(Google) have implemented…
Android utilizes a security mechanism that requires apps to request permission for accessing sensitive user data, e.g., contacts and SMSs, or certain system features, e.g., camera and Internet access. However, Android apps tend to be…
Android apps collecting data from users must comply with legal frameworks to ensure data protection. This requirement has become even more important since the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by the European…
Many Android applications collect data from users. When they do, they must protect this collected data according to the current legal frameworks. Such data protection has become even more important since the European Union rolled out the…
Human values are an important aspect of life and should be supported in ubiquitous technologies such as mobile applications (apps). There has been a lot of focus on fixing certain kinds of violation of human values, especially privacy,…
In today's mobile application marketplace, the ability of consumers to make informed choices regarding their privacy is extremely limited. Consumers largely rely on privacy policies and app permission mechanisms, but these do an inadequate…
App markets have evolved into highly competitive and dynamic environments for developers. While the traditional app life cycle involves incremental updates for feature enhancements and issue resolution, some apps deviate from this norm by…
The industry for children's apps is thriving at the cost of children's privacy: these apps routinely disclose children's data to multiple data trackers and ad networks. As children spend increasing time online, such exposure accumulates to…
The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides California residents with a range of enhanced privacy protections and rights. Our research investigated the extent to which Android app developers comply with the provisions of the CCPA…
Android apps require permissions when accessing resources related to privacy or system integrity. Starting from Android 6, these permissions have to be asked at runtime. However, migrating to the new permission model poses multiple…
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…
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…
While mobile app evolution has been widely studied, geographical variation in app behavior remains largely unexplored. This paper presents a large-scale study of location-based Android app differentiation, uncovering two important and…
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'…
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…
With the rapid development of online technologies and the widespread usage of mobile phones among children, it is crucial to protect their online safety. Some studies reported that online abuse and incidents negatively affect children's…