The simpler, the better? Presenting the COPING Android permission-granting interface for better privacy-related decisions

Abstract

One of the great innovations of the modern world is the Smartphone app. The sheer multitude of available apps attests to their popularity and general ability to satisfy our wants and needs. The flip side of the functionality these apps offer is their potential for privacy invasion. Apps can, if granted permission, gather a vast amount of very personal and sensitive information. App developers might exploit the combination of human propensities and the design of the Android permission-granting interface to gain permission to access more information than they really need. This compromises personal privacy. The fact that the Android is the globally dominant phone means widespread privacy invasion is a real concern.We, and other researchers, have proposed alternatives to the Android permission-granting interface. The aim of these alternatives is to highlight privacy considerations more effectively during app installation: to ensure that privacy becomes part of the decision-making process. We report, here, on a study with 344 participants that compared the impact of a number of permission-granting interface proposals, including our own (called the COPING interface -COmprehensive PermIssioN Granting) and two Android interfaces. To conduct the comparison we carried out an online study with a mixed-model design.Our main finding is that the focus in these interfaces ought to be on improving the quality of the provided information rather than merely simplifying the interface. The intuitive approach is to reduce and simplify information, but we discovered that this actually impairs the quality of the decision. Our recommendation is that further investigation is required in order to find the "sweet spot" where understandability and comprehensiveness are maximised.

User, Usage and Usability: Redefining Human Centric Cyber Security

“…The challenge is to design a usable permission interface from a privacy point of view. Gerber et al (2017) specifically studied two key factors in designing usable privacy, understandability and comprehensiveness in the context of Android apps. The understandability increases the quality of information provided to users, whereas comprehensiveness increases the quality of decision made by users.…”

Exploring cybersecurity-related emotions and finding that they are challenging to measure

“…This conflict has often been mentioned by researchers in various areas such as encryption (Whitten and Tygar, 1999), smart home technologies or password creation (Inglesant and Sasse, 2010) and is targeted, especially by usable security researchers that aim to lessen the trade-off by increasing usability of security technologies and considering human needs (Adams andSasse, 1999, Zurko, 2005). Attempts include password meters to support usable and secure password creation (Ur, 2017), the development of usable privacy management tools (Gerber et al, 2017), or the design of interfaces to increase the security and usability of e-voting (Marky et al, 2018) or authentication (Lashkari et al, 2009). BLIND SPOT issues.…”

Psychological Effects and Their Role in Online Privacy Interactions: A Review

“…''Salient/comprehensive privacy information'' is a subject of studies in A13 [58], A14 [59] and A15 [60]. In the context of the web (i.e., online shopping), A13 [58] empirically tested whether the display of prominent privacy information has an impact on users concerned about privacy.…”

“…A14 [59] focused on ''salient information'' in the context of the Android permission granting at the time of install. The goal of the work was to compare a previously proposed UI for permission settings, a then-current Android manager with the newly designed interface.…”