What Is This Sensor and Does This App Need Access to It?

Abstract

Mobile sensors have already proven to be helpful in different aspects of people’s everyday lives such as fitness, gaming, navigation, etc. However, illegitimate access to these sensors results in a malicious program running with an exploit path. While the users are benefiting from richer and more personalized apps, the growing number of sensors introduces new security and privacy risks to end users and makes the task of sensor management more complex. In this paper, first, we discuss the issues around the security and privacy of mobile sensors. We investigate the available sensors on mainstream mobile devices and study the permission policies that Android, iOS and mobile web browsers offer for them. Second, we reflect the results of two workshops that we organized on mobile sensor security. In these workshops, the participants were introduced to mobile sensors by working with sensor-enabled apps. We evaluated the risk levels perceived by the participants for these sensors after they understood the functionalities of these sensors. The results showed that knowing sensors by working with sensor-enabled apps would not immediately improve the users’ security inference of the actual risks of these sensors. However, other factors such as the prior general knowledge about these sensors and their risks had a strong impact on the users’ perception. We also taught the participants about the ways that they could audit their apps and their permissions. Our findings showed that when mobile users were provided with reasonable choices and intuitive teaching, they could easily self-direct themselves to improve their security and privacy. Finally, we provide recommendations for educators, app developers, and mobile users to contribute toward awareness and education on this topic.

Caring for Intimate Data in Fertility Technologies

“…user consent and third party sharing which may lead to malicious purposes, and that technologies fail to abide by the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in that they continue to share valuable personal information to commercial entities in ways of which users may not be fully aware [43]. Women may be aware of and have consented to some of these uses as agreed on or requested when frst using the chosen app, but have no knowledge of others (such as some sensors on their devices and tracking data) [47]. In other words, as 'fertility goes digital' (valued at USD50 billion by 2025 [70]), it comes at the expense of (mostly) women's privacy.…”

The role of Industry 4.0 on supply chain cost and supply chain flexibility

“…, 2015). Finally, in the context of technology use, sensors allow for more meaningful interactions and features (Mehrnezhad and Toreini, 2019).…”

“…Horizontal and vertical integrated technologies link a company closely with its suppliers and customers as well as with its own departments, functions, and capabilities, creating a considerable automated value chain (R€ ußmann et al, 2015). Finally, in the context of technology use, sensors allow for more meaningful interactions and features (Mehrnezhad and Toreini, 2019).…”

Epidemic contact tracing with smartphone sensors

“…• Sensor permission. Permission wise, each sensor has different permission levels, based on how Android deems their threat to the user's privacy (Mehrnezhad and Toreini 2019). In short, there are three relevant types of Android sensor permission for our purpose.…”