Privacy Issues in Mobile Health Applications - Assessment of Current Android Health Apps

Hoppe, Anett; Knackmuß, Jenny; Morgenstern, Maik; Creutzburg, Reiner

doi:10.2352/issn.2470-1173.2017.6.mobmu-302

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…In this sense, what might be acceptable in one app might not be reasonable in others. Similar studies found that 77 of 186 (41.4%) permissions requested by 58 popular German mHealth apps were not related in any way to the apps’ functionalities [ 38 ]. Moreover, 15 of 42 (35.7%) Android health and well-being apps accredited by the UK’s NHS Health Apps Library requested critical permissions for unjustifiable reasons [ 12 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…For prominent mental health apps in the Google Play Store, the most frequently requested permissions were also write (73%) and read (73%) external storage. In addition, these two permissions were the most requested (79%) in medicine-related apps in the Google Play Store in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia [ 38 ]. These permissions may indeed jeopardize users’ privacy because they allow developers to access users’ data, photos, and videos stored on the device [ 33 , 34 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analysis of Diabetes Apps to Assess Privacy-Related Permissions: Systematic Search of Apps

Flors-Sidro¹,

Househ²,

Abd‐Alrazaq³

et al. 2021

JMIR Diabetes

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Background Mobile health has become a major vehicle of support for people living with diabetes. Accordingly, the availability of mobile apps for diabetes has been steadily increasing. Most of the previous reviews of diabetes apps have focused on the apps’ features and their alignment with clinical guidelines. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the actual compliance of diabetes apps with privacy and data security guidelines. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the levels of privacy of mobile apps for diabetes to contribute to the raising of awareness of privacy issues for app users, developers, and governmental data protection regulators. Methods We developed a semiautomatic app search module capable of retrieving Android apps’ privacy-related information, particularly the dangerous permissions required by apps, with the aim of analyzing privacy aspects related to diabetes apps. Following the research selection criteria, the original 882 apps were narrowed down to 497 apps that were included in the analysis. Results Approximately 60% of the analyzed diabetes apps requested potentially dangerous permissions, which pose a significant risk to users’ data privacy. In addition, 28.4% (141/497) of the apps did not provide a website for their privacy policy. Moreover, it was found that 40.0% (199/497) of the apps contained advertising, and some apps that claimed not to contain advertisements actually did. Ninety-five percent of the apps were free, and those belonging to the “medical” and “health and fitness” categories were the most popular. However, app users do not always realize that the free apps’ business model is largely based on advertising and, consequently, on sharing or selling their private data, either directly or indirectly, to unknown third parties. Conclusions The aforementioned findings confirm the necessity of educating patients and health care providers and raising their awareness regarding the privacy aspects of diabetes apps. Therefore, this research recommends properly and comprehensively training users, ensuring that governments and regulatory bodies enforce strict data protection laws, devising much tougher security policies and protocols in Android and in the Google Play Store, and implicating and supervising all stakeholders in the apps’ development process.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of Diabetes Apps to Assess Privacy-Related Permissions: Systematic Search of Apps

Flors-Sidro¹,

Househ²,

Abd‐Alrazaq³

et al. 2021

JMIR Diabetes

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Moreover, false entries can be inducted into the saved content of the patient. Furthermore, patients who are victimized by the reprobates may lead them to false treatments which can cause many disastrous consequences to their health even death [27].…”

Section: Safeguarding Content Contraventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Review of Cellphone Healthcare Applications: Content Privacy and Safety Issues, Challenges and Recommendations

Murtaza,

Khan,

Rasheed

et al. 2023

VAWKUM trans. comput. sci.

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Nowadays, cellphone healthcare applications are receiving a considerable amount of attentiveness from both researchers and developers. Advances in communication technologies have aided the evolution in the usage of cellphones and digital devices and present challenges in terms of the accuracy and reliability of cellphone healthcare applications. Nevertheless, these applications may compromise crucial threats related to the seclusion and safety of users’ health content. Awareness of these challenges can help cellphone and cellphone application producers to manufacture efficient tools to allow patients and users to access the services of these technologies very effectively. The main objective of this research paper is to recognize the potential limitations and strengths regarding content seclusion and safety for the development and widespread utilization of effective cellphone healthcare applications. We have employed a literature survey and a relative comparison of the top ten top-rated cellphone healthcare applications to recognize security threats and characteristics that can support developers in building healthcare applications with necessary seclusion and safety standards and allow the users to select the appropriate application for their personal use.

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User-centered representation of data flows in mHealth applications

Schweickart,

Erler,

Juhl

et al. 2023

2023 International Conference on Electrical, Communication and Computer Engineering (ICECCE)

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Privacy Issues in Mobile Health Applications - Assessment of Current Android Health Apps

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Analysis of Diabetes Apps to Assess Privacy-Related Permissions: Systematic Search of Apps

Analysis of Diabetes Apps to Assess Privacy-Related Permissions: Systematic Search of Apps

A Review of Cellphone Healthcare Applications: Content Privacy and Safety Issues, Challenges and Recommendations

User-centered representation of data flows in mHealth applications

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