11th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services

Research Article

Raising Awareness on Smartphone Privacy Issues with SASQUATCH, and solving them with PrivacyPolice

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.4108/icst.mobiquitous.2014.258025,
        author={Bram Bonn\^{e} and Wim Lamotte and Peter Quax and Kris Luyten},
        title={Raising Awareness on Smartphone Privacy Issues with SASQUATCH, and solving them with PrivacyPolice},
        proceedings={11th International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Computing, Networking and Services},
        publisher={ICST},
        proceedings_a={MOBIQUITOUS},
        year={2014},
        month={11},
        keywords={privacy security smartphones 80211 awareness},
        doi={10.4108/icst.mobiquitous.2014.258025}
    }
    
  • Bram Bonné
    Wim Lamotte
    Peter Quax
    Kris Luyten
    Year: 2014
    Raising Awareness on Smartphone Privacy Issues with SASQUATCH, and solving them with PrivacyPolice
    MOBIQUITOUS
    ICST
    DOI: 10.4108/icst.mobiquitous.2014.258025
Bram Bonné1,*, Wim Lamotte1, Peter Quax1, Kris Luyten1
  • 1: iMinds/tUL/UHasselt
*Contact email: bram.bonne@uhasselt.be

Abstract

Smartphones leak personal information about their owner when they use it to connect to the Internet. Despite recent coverage of these issues in popular media, raising awareness remains problematic since it remains largely invisible to the users. We designed a system, SASQUATCH, consisting of a network scanner and a public display, to draw the visitor's attention and inform them about these issues. SASQUATCH first gathers private information about previous whereabouts, and then shows an anonymized version of this data on the public display to draw the visitor's attention. Next, SASQUATCH offers an interactive component that allows people to view the information their own smartphone is leaking in private, and then provides solutions (including a fully-automated smartphone application) for securing against future privacy leaks. A set of initial field trails has shown that SASQUATCH is highly effective in raising awareness.