University college of london medical school, Public university in London, England

London, Feb 20 Smartphone users are unaware of privacy implications of some permissions they grant to apps and services and researchers have been able to identify which kind of personal information the apps extract with location tracking on.This is the first extensive study shedding light on the range of personal information that can be inferred from location-tracking data. CConsequently, the study by two researchers from University of Bologna, Italy and Benjamin Baron from University College London, the UK also shows how collecting such information can represent a violation of the users' privacy.To this end, the researchers developed a mobile application TrackingAdvisor that continuously collects user location.From the location data, the app can extract personal information and asks users to give feedback on the correctness of such information as well as to rate its relevance in terms of privacy sensitivity."Users are largely unaware of the privacy implications of some permissions they grant to apps and services, in particular when it comes to location-tracking information", said Mirco Musolesi from University of Bologna.Thanks to machine learning techniques, these data provide sensitive information such as the place where users live, their habits, interests, demographics, and information about users' personalities.Through the TrackingAdvisor app employed in the study - published in Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies researchers were able to identify which kind of personal information the app extracted and its privacy sensitivity according to users.For the study, 69 users used TrackAdvisor for at least two weeks.TrackAdvisor tracked more than 200,000 locations, identifying approximately 2,500 places and collecting almost 5,000 pieces of personal information concerning both demographics and personality.Among the data gathered, the users find that the most sensitive pieces of information were the ones about health, socio-economic situation, ethnicity, and religion."We think it is important to show users the amount and quality of information that apps can collect through location tracking", Musolesi added."Equally important for us is to understand whether users think that sharing information with app managers or marketing firms is acceptable or deem it a violation of their privacy".According to the researchers, analyses like this pave the way to designing targeted advertising systems that help users protect their privacy, especially with the data they deem more sensitive."Thanks to such systems, users interested for example - in protecting information about their own health could receive a notification each time they go to a health clinic or hospital", said Musolesi.But there is more.This could also lead to the development of systems that can automatically block the collection of sensitive data from third parties thanks to previously defined privacy settings, the authors noted.( With inputs from IANS )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

University College Of London Medical SchoolFOLLOW

University college of london medical school, Latest News

England assistant batting coach Graham Thorpe on Monday said that the coloured seating at the newly-built Motera Stadium could make the job of the fielders a little bit harder in terms of citing the pink ball in the day-night Test. ...

England fast bowler James Anderson might have torn apart India's batting line-up in the opening game but the pacer doesn't expect reverse swing to play the same role in the upcoming pink-ball Test. ...

A recent study revealed that approximately 50 per cent of patients, who are hospitalized due to severe COVID-19 symptoms, show raised levels of a protein called troponin that causes damage to their hearts. ...

New Delhi, Feb 21 England players don't have any issue with the pitch that was laid out for ... ...

England batsman Zak Crawley has said that he would be surprised if India decides to produce an absolute 'green seamer for the upcoming third Test. ...

Through a clinical study published in the European Heart Journal, scientists claim that around half of the patients studied have had their heart damaged subsequent to being hospitalised with severe COVID-19 and they showed elevated levels of a protei ...

New Delhi, Feb 20 The senior national selection committee on Saturday pick the 19-member squad for the upcoming ... ...

London, Feb 20 Smartphone users are unaware of privacy implications of some permissions they grant to apps and ... ...