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As data privacy continues to be a crucial human-right concern as recognized by the UN, regulatory agencies have demanded developers obtain user permission before accessing user-sensitive data. Mainly through the use of privacy policies statements, developers fulfill their legal requirements to keep users abreast of the requests for their data. In addition, platforms such as Android enforces explicit permission request using the permission model. Nonetheless, recent research has shown that service providers hardly make full disclosure when requesting data in these statements. Neither is the current permission model designed to provide adequate informed consent. Often users have no clear understanding of the reason and scope of usage of the data request. This paper proposes an unambiguous, informed consent process that provides developers with a standardized method for declaring Intent. Our proposed Intent-aware permission architecture extends the current Android permission model with a precise mechanism for full disclosure of purpose and scope limitation. The design of which is based on an ontology study of data requests purposes. The overarching objective of this model is to ensure end-users are adequately informed before making decisions on their data. Additionally, this model has the potential to improve trust between end-users and developers.
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This content will become publicly available on February 24, 2026
Modeling End-User Affective Discomfort With Mobile App Permissions Across Physical Contexts
Users make hundreds of transactional permission decisions for smartphone applications, but these decisions persist beyond the context in which they were made. We hypothesized that user concern over permissions varies by context, e.g., that users might be more concerned about location permissions at home than work. To test our hypothesis, we ran a 44-participant, 4-week experience sampling study, asking users about their concern over specific application-permission pairs, plus their physical environment and context. We found distinguishable differences in participants’ concern about permissions across locations and activities, suggesting that users might benefit from more dynamic and contextually-aware approaches to permission decision-making. However, attempts to assist users in configuring these more complex permissions should be made with the aim to reduce concern and affective discomfort—not to normalize and perpetuate this discomfort by replicating prior decisions alone.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2316294
- PAR ID:
- 10659317
- Publisher / Repository:
- Internet Society
- Date Published:
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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