Device analyzer: a privacy-aware platform to support research on the Android ecosystem

Device Analyzer is an Android app available from the Google Play store. It is designed to collect a large range of data from the handset and, with agreement from our contributors, share it with researchers around the world. Researchers can access the data collected, and can also use the platform to support their own user studies. In this paper we provide an overview of the privacy-enhancing techniques used in Device Analzyer, including transparency, consent, purpose, access, withdrawal, and accountability. We also demonstrate the utility of our platform by assessing the security of the Android ecosystem to privilege escalation attacks and determine that 88% of Android devices are, on average, vulnerable to one or more of these type of attacks.