EMPAware: Analyzing Changes in User Perceptions of Mobile Privacy on iOS with Enhanced Awareness

Smartphones contain intimate details of users that are inferred from collected data or explicitly stored on the device. These details include daily travel patterns including most frequently visited locations, private photos, addresses and birthdays of their contacts, and more. Consumers have a general awareness that services they use without a financial payment are paid for in part by advertisements. Additionally, they have a general awareness that these services collect detailed information while they use the service. In iOS, applications must provide a detailed description in how they will use data that requires permission from the user. However, the provided description often only tells part of the story. Behind the scenes, consumers are unable to see how applications share information or which part of data the application utilizes. Additionally, consumers are unable to see how often applications communicate with advertisement services and if they share data gathered through permissions from the application. In this paper we created EMPAware, a system that provides users an enhanced awareness in how applications use their data. Users are able to view in real-time through a web portal how applications use their data and how they communicate with advertisement servers. Using EMPAware, we performed a study measuring the impact that an enhanced awareness has on the perception of mobile privacy with 32 participants. From this study, users became more concerned with privacy where 79% believe applications misuse data and 89% believe they have little control of their data. EMPAware demonstrates that when users have a better understanding in how applications use their data, they become more concerned with the privacy.