Towards Location Privacy Awareness on Geo-Social Networks

Abstract

With the current trend of embedding location services within social networks, an ever growing amount of users' spatiotemporal tracks are being collected and used to generate user profiles. Issues of personal privacy and especially those stemming from tracking user location become more important to address. In this work, it is argued that support of location privacy awareness within social networks is needed to maintain the users' trust in their services. Current practices of pre-configuring location disclosure settings have been shown to be limited, where users' sense of location privacy dynamically change with context. In this paper, location privacy awareness is considered within a composite view of place, time and social data recorded in user profiles. The paper examines the possible threats to personal privacy from exposure of this data and the design of feedback tools to allow users to control their privacy. A user study is used to examine the impact of the feedback provided on users' perception of privacy and the link between their privacy concerns and their attitude towards using the geo-social network. Findings confirm the strong need for more transparent access to and control over user location profiles, and guide the proposal of recommendations to the design of more privacy-sensitive geo-social networks.

Privacy-Aware Decision Making: The Effect of Privacy Nudges on Privacy Awareness and the Monetary Assessment of Personal Information

“…Research indicates a general deficit in privacy literacy and awareness among mobile users, complicating their ability to navigate privacy concerns effectively. Despite some flexibility in iOS permission settings, both Android and iOS platforms fall short in offering clear explanations about permission functionalities, data access, and usage scope, thus obscuring the implications of permission settings for personal data security [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28], [29], [30], [31], [32], [15], [33]. Recent research has focused on enhancing privacy permission interfaces, aiming to better inform user decisionmaking.…”

On General Data Protection Regulation Vulnerabilities and Privacy Issues, for Wearable Devices and Fitness Tracking Applications

“…The tool aimed to increase awareness and expose complex risks, such as the possibility of social security number extraction, by combining data recorded by fitness devices and shared in social networks. Another research [52] reported the limitations of users' knowledge and awareness on the consequences of location sharing (retrieved by wearable devices and processed by fitness apps) through social networks. In other cases [53], sharing information about the user's spatiotemporal mobility patterns may be enough to reveal sensitive information, such as their home location.…”

Are my Apps Peeking? Comparing Nudging Mechanisms to Raise Awareness of Access to Mobile Front-facing Camera

“…Acquisti et al explored how nudges are used for privacy and security [1]. On mobile platforms, most research was concerned with location privacy on mobile platforms [2,3,6,8]. Aiming to remind users of application permissions and encouraging users to re-consider them, Almuhimedi et al conducted a field study on daily nudges which show users the frequency their mobile applications access sensitive location data [2].…”

“…Balebako et al [6] developed two types of interfaces: just-intime notifications that are shown the moment data is shared and a visualization which summarizes shared data. Alrayes et al [3] developed a location feedback tool. It was designed as a floating icon which indicates the threat level of location privacy.…”

“…Frame Nudges: we designed a colored border around the screen alongside an ordinary notification depicting the camera status. Inspired by Alrayes et al [3], we used different frame colors to denote different levels: an orange frame is displayed when front camera is accessed and a red frame is displayed when video feed/photos are being processed. According to our design space, frame nudges are classified as persistent and non-blocking nudges ( Figure 2B).…”