App
or website: Here's what is best for your privacy
NEW YORK: The free apps and web-based services that you
downloaded on Android or iOS mobile devices may have in turn leaked your personal
information, including names, gender, phone numbers, and e-mail, a study has
found.
For the study, researchers investigated the degree to
which each platform -- including advertisers and data analytics companies that
these services rely on for finance -- leaks personal identification information
(birthdates, locations).
The findings showed that both apps and websites leaked
personally identifiable information to varying degrees.
"We expected that apps would leak more as they have
better and direct access to these information. Overall that's true," said
Assistant Professor David Choffnes, at Northeastern University in
Massachusetts, US.
But he also added that typically apps leak "just one
more identifier than a website" for the same service.
In fact, we found that in 40 per cent of cases websites
leaked more types of information than apps," Choffnes said.
Researchers also found that these services would send
encrypted passwords to a third party due to a bug, for authentication purposes
or for identity management.
"The reasons for the intentional leaks are
legitimate, and I'm sure that the services have appropriate agreements with the
other parties to protect the passwords," Choffnes said.
He, however, added, "Users have no idea that their
passwords were being sent to other parties."
To help users make informed decisions about how best to access online services, the researchers have integrated their findings into an easy-to-use interactive website.
To help users make informed decisions about how best to access online services, the researchers have integrated their findings into an easy-to-use interactive website.
This website rates the degree of leak of 50 free online
services, from Airbnb to Zillow, based on each user's privacy preferences.
The free online services include business, entertainment,
music, news, shopping, travel, and weather. Each service had to offer the same
functionality on both its website and app.
"There's no one answer as to which platform would be
the best for all users," said Choffnes.
"We wanted people to have their chance to do their
own exploration and understand how their particular privacy preferences and
priorities played into their interactions online," he said.
Users can select from a drop-down list of the services
included and also the operating system they used -- Android or iOS.
Next the users are asked to rate various types of
personal information, from their birthdates to their devices' unique
identifiers -- information that they mostly prefer to keep private.
"Then, automatically, the site generates two
leakiness indexes for the service selected --a sky blue bar for the app
version, a lime green one for the web -- and recommends the best platform for
that particular user," the researchers said.
Choffnes hopes that the study would start a dialogue
between consumers and online services about the kind of information that should
be collected -- balancing the services' revenue needs with consumers' privacy
needs.
The results will be presented at the 2016 Internet
Measurement Conference, in Santa Monica, California.
Regards
Pralhad Jadhav
Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co
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