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Benchmarking Privacy Policies in the Mobile Application Ecosystem

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Software Business (ICSOB 2018)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 336))

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Abstract

Mobile app providers have access to, and gather, large amounts of personal data. The exact data varies by app provider and is described in lengthy privacy policies with varying levels of transparency. Privacy policies with a low level of transparency hamper users from making educated decisions about the data that they want to share with third parties. In this paper, the Privacy Policy Benchmark Model is presented based on existing literature and applied to a selection of 20 mobile applications and their privacy policies. The Privacy Policy Benchmark Model is used for evaluating the transparency and quantity of data that is collected. The model consists of two aspects: the amount of data mobile app provides collect and the transparency of those privacy policies. The examined providers are transparent about what they collected and how they use it. They are less transparent about other topics such as the location of the stored information and how information is processed after removal, making privacy and usage considerations more difficult for users on those specific matters.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    bit.do/PrivacyPoliciesData.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4, 3584 CD, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sharif Adel Kandil, Micha van den Akker, Koen van Baarsen, Slinger Jansen & Paul van Vulpen

Authors
  1. Sharif Adel Kandil
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  2. Micha van den Akker
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  3. Koen van Baarsen
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  4. Slinger Jansen
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  5. Paul van Vulpen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sharif Adel Kandil .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden

    Krzysztof Wnuk

  2. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sjaak Brinkkemper

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Kandil, S.A., van den Akker, M., van Baarsen, K., Jansen, S., van Vulpen, P. (2018). Benchmarking Privacy Policies in the Mobile Application Ecosystem. In: Wnuk, K., Brinkkemper, S. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2018. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 336. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04840-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04840-2_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04839-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04840-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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