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User-Driven Privacy Factors in Trigger-Action Apps: A Comparative Analysis with General IoT

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Privacy and Identity Management. Sharing in a Digital World (Privacy and Identity 2023)

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Abstract

The growing adoption of Trigger-Action Platforms (TAPs) in the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has evolved users’ ability to automate their digital environments. However, this automation also introduces potential threats to users’ privacy. To enhance users’ privacy decisions and develop effective permission management systems, it is crucial to understand users’ comprehension of privacy factors in the IoT. This paper presents a literature review on privacy factors in the general IoT environment and compares them with users’ priorities and preferences for privacy factors specific to TAPs. To this end, we earlier conducted three Focus Groups (FGs) to gather users’ definitions and rankings of privacy factors in the TAPs context. Through the comparison with the general IoT literature, we highlight the similarities and differences in privacy factors between TAPs and traditional IoT applications. The outcomes of this study can inform the designers and developers with an emphasis on privacy-centric IoT TAPs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program (WASP) funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation. I would like to thank my supervisor Simone Fischer-Hübner and my co-supervisor Farzaneh Karegar for their helpful feedback and advice who together with Victor Morel also helped with conducting the focus groups and thematic analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Piero Romare

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  1. Piero Romare
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Correspondence to Piero Romare .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. ULD, Germany, Kiel, Germany

    Felix Bieker

  2. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Silvia de Conca

  3. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Nils Gruschka

  4. Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden

    Meiko Jensen

  5. Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, Wolfenbüttel, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Ina Schiering

A Appendix

A Appendix

Table 3. Summary of Privacy Factors in IoT context with mixed-methods
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Table 4. Summary of Privacy Factors in IoT context with questionnaires
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Table 5. Summary of Privacy Factors in IoT context with questionnaires
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Table 6. Summary of Privacy Factors in IoT context with qualitative methods
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Romare, P. (2024). User-Driven Privacy Factors in Trigger-Action Apps: A Comparative Analysis with General IoT. In: Bieker, F., de Conca, S., Gruschka, N., Jensen, M., Schiering, I. (eds) Privacy and Identity Management. Sharing in a Digital World. Privacy and Identity 2023. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 695. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57978-3_16

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