Privacy enhancing technology awareness for mobile devices

Users are often unaware of what information an app is collecting about them and with the increasing number of apps can also struggle to control and manage the large volumes of personal information. Current research into privacy often has a tendency to assume that users have uniform privacy requirements to control and manage personal information. The main problem with this approach is that research has also shown that users have different privacy attitudes and preferences. It is important to factor these requirements in a privacy-awareness model that can enhance the user’s awareness to make more informed decisions and to reduce their specific degree of exposure. As result, this paper proposed an approach that considers individual requirements in a centralised and usable manner to meet users’ needs. Through prioritization of privacy-related information, based on an individual user basis, is utilised to ensure relevant and timely notifications about privacy-related information that is important to the user. Accordingly, an evaluation was conducted to identify users' privacy preferences, how they wish to control different aspects of privacy and how this relates to good usability design to maximise adoption.