A Multilateral Privacy Impact Analysis Method for Android Applications

Abstract Most people’s private lives can be monitored by smartphone applications (apps). Apps have the potential to invade private spaces, access and map social interactions, track users’ whereabouts, and track their online activities. Our interest is in the volume of data that a specific app can and seeks to retrieve on a smartphone. Smartphone app privacy friendliness is normally evaluated based on single-source analyses, which often do not offer a thorough assessment of the app’s actual privacy threats. In order to analyze Android apps’ privacy, this study proposes a multi-source methodology. Our data sets and methodology from app manifestos, privacy policies, vulnerability analysis and user reviews were described. Results from a case study on ten well-known finance applications operating in Nigeria were provided in order to assess our methodology. Our findings showed distinct patterns regarding the possible privacy implications of apps, with some of the apps in the data set infringing fundamental privacy principles. The case study’s findings reveal significant differences that can guide users in making relevant app choices.