IDPFilter: Mitigating Interdependent Privacy Issues in Third-Party Apps

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Liu, Shuaishuai, Biczók, Gergely
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Liu, Shuaishuai
Biczók, Gergely
author_facet Liu, Shuaishuai
Biczók, Gergely
contents Third-party applications have become an essential part of today's online ecosystem, enhancing the functionality of popular platforms. However, the intensive data exchange underlying their proliferation has increased concerns about interdependent privacy (IDP). This paper provides a comprehensive investigation into the previously underinvestigated IDP issues of third-party apps. Specifically, first, we analyze the permission structure of multiple app platforms, identifying permissions that have the potential to cause interdependent privacy issues by enabling a user to share someone else's personal data with an app. Second, we collect datasets and characterize the extent to which existing apps request these permissions, revealing the relationship between characteristics such as the respective app platform, the app's type, and the number of interdependent privacy-related permissions it requests. Third, we analyze the various reasons IDP is neglected by both data protection regulations and app platforms and then devise principles that should be followed when designing a mitigation solution. Finally, based on these principles and satisfying clearly defined objectives, we propose IDPFilter, a platform-agnostic API that enables application providers to minimize collateral information collection by filtering out data collected from their users but implicating others as data subjects. We implement a proof-of-concept prototype, IDPTextFilter, that implements the filtering logic on textual data, and provide its initial performance evaluation with regard to privacy, accuracy, and efficiency.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2405_01411
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publishDate 2024
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spellingShingle IDPFilter: Mitigating Interdependent Privacy Issues in Third-Party Apps
Liu, Shuaishuai
Biczók, Gergely
Cryptography and Security
Third-party applications have become an essential part of today's online ecosystem, enhancing the functionality of popular platforms. However, the intensive data exchange underlying their proliferation has increased concerns about interdependent privacy (IDP). This paper provides a comprehensive investigation into the previously underinvestigated IDP issues of third-party apps. Specifically, first, we analyze the permission structure of multiple app platforms, identifying permissions that have the potential to cause interdependent privacy issues by enabling a user to share someone else's personal data with an app. Second, we collect datasets and characterize the extent to which existing apps request these permissions, revealing the relationship between characteristics such as the respective app platform, the app's type, and the number of interdependent privacy-related permissions it requests. Third, we analyze the various reasons IDP is neglected by both data protection regulations and app platforms and then devise principles that should be followed when designing a mitigation solution. Finally, based on these principles and satisfying clearly defined objectives, we propose IDPFilter, a platform-agnostic API that enables application providers to minimize collateral information collection by filtering out data collected from their users but implicating others as data subjects. We implement a proof-of-concept prototype, IDPTextFilter, that implements the filtering logic on textual data, and provide its initial performance evaluation with regard to privacy, accuracy, and efficiency.
title IDPFilter: Mitigating Interdependent Privacy Issues in Third-Party Apps
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.01411