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Jennifer King, “How Come I’m Allowing Strangers to Go Through My Phone?”: Smart Phones and Privacy Expectations

Jennifer King, “How Come I’m Allowing Strangers to Go Through My Phone?”: Smart Phones and Privacy Expectations

Comment by: Scott Peppet

PLSC 2012

Workshop draft abstract:

This study examines the privacy expectations of smart phone users by exploring two specific dimensions to smart phone privacy: participants’ concerns with other people accessing the personal data stored on their smart phones, and applications accessing this data via platform APIs. We interviewed 24 Apple iPhone and Google Android users about their smart phone usage, using Altman’s theory of boundary regulation and Nissenbaum’s theory of contextual integrity to shape our inquiry. We found these theories provided a strong rationale for explaining participants’ privacy expectations, but there were discrepancies between users’ privacy expectations, smart phone usage, and the current information access practices by application developers. We conclude by exploring this “privacy gap” and recommending design improvements to both the platforms and applications to address it.