Visualizing Privacy Risks of Mobile Applications through a Privacy Meter

When it comes to installing mobile applications on Android devices, users tend to ignore privacy warning messages about permissions being requested. Warning messages are often shown too late and are hard to interpret for normal users. To improve users’ awareness of potential privacy implications of installing an application, we designed a “privacy meter” that visualizes the risks (in a slider bar format) imposed by the types of permissions being requested. Interpreting and understanding privacy risks become quick and easy.

Our lab study shows that the privacy meter is the most effective solution compared to Google’s existing permission screens and privacy fact feature. With the privacy meter in place, only about 26% of participants recommended applications that have high privacy risks to their friends and family members. That is a significant improvement from the 61% of participants who recommended high risk applications when Google’s permission screens were used. The time taken to make recommendation decisions, on average, also dropped from 72 seconds to 26 seconds when the privacy meter was used.