Hobson’s Choice: Security and Privacy Permissions in Android and iOS Devices

The use of smartphones and tablet devices has grown rapidly over recent years and the widespread availability of software, often from unknown developers, has led to security and privacy concerns. In order to prevent security compromises, these devices use access control as a means by which a user is able to specify an application’s ability to interact with services and data. However, the use of access control as a security countermeasure in this environment is severely limited. For example, once permissions are granted to software, they may share data, such as location or unique identifiers with third persons without informing the user, whether or not the application is itself running. This paper presents the results of a comparative study conducted with computing students at two UK universities that identifies the issues surrounding software access control permissions in Android and iOS operating systems. Through this study, we are able to quantify the impact of security access permissions on mobile device security and privacy, even amongst specialist users.