Understanding People's Preferences for Disclosing Contextual Information to Smartphone Apps

Smartphones have become the primary and most intimate computing devices that people rely on for their daily tasks. Sensor-based and network technologies have turned smartphones into a “context-aware” information hub and a vehicle for information exchange. These information provide apps and third party with a wealth of sensitive information to mine and profile user behavior. However, the Orwellian implications created by context-awareness technology have caused uneasiness to people when using smartphone applications and reluctance of using them [6]. To mitigate people’s privacy concerns, previous research suggests giving controls to people on how their information should be collected, accessed and shared. However, deciding who (people or the application) gets to access to what (types of information) could be an unattainable task. In order to develop appropriate applications and privacy policies it is important to understand under what circumstances people are willing to disclose information.