Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2021
Abstract
Context: Mobile applications (apps) have become deeply personal, constantly demanding access to privacy-sensitive information in exchange for more personalized user experiences. Such privacy-invading practices have generated major multidimensional privacy concerns among app users. Objective: The research on mobile app privacy has experienced rapid growth over the past decade. This line of research is aimed at systematically exposing the privacy practices of apps and proposing solutions to protect the privacy of mobile app users. In this paper, we conduct a systematic mapping study of this body of research. Our objectives are to a) explore trends in SE app privacy research, b) categorize existing evidence, and c) identify potential directions for future research. Method: A systematic mapping study of 59 Software Engineering (SE) primary studies on mobile app privacy. Our scope is studies published in software engineering venues between 2008 and 2018. Results: Our results show that existing literature can be divided into four main categories: privacy policy, requirements, user perspective, and leak detection. Furthermore, our survey reveals an imbalance between these categories—the majority of existing research focuses on proposing tools for detecting privacy leaks, with fewer studies targeting privacy requirements and policy and even fewer on user perspective. Conclusions: Our survey exposes several gaps in existing research and suggests areas for improvement.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Information and Software Technology
Recommended Citation
Ebrahimi, F., Tushev, M., & Mahmoud, A. (2021). Mobile app privacy in software engineering research: A systematic mapping study. Information and Software Technology, 133 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2020.106466
