An Investigative Study on the Privacy Implications of Mobile E-scooter Rental Apps
An Investigative Study on the Privacy Implications of Mobile E-scooter Rental Apps
复制标题
DOI：
10.1145/3507657.3528551
复制
发表时间：
2022-05
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Nisha Vinayaga-Sureshkanth;Raveen Wijewickrama;Anindya Maiti;Murtuza Jadliwala
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Nisha Vinayaga-Sureshkanth;Raveen Wijewickrama;Anindya Maiti;Murtuza Jadliwala
电动滑板车租赁服务自2017年成立以来，极大地扩展了短途城市和郊区交通的微出行模式。世界各地的服务提供商都遵循一种常见的租赁模式，即客户（即车手或用户）下载并安装用于定位（查找）和租赁电动滑板车的移动应用程序。与许多其他类型的应用程序不同，电动滑板车租赁应用程序需要一组隐私敏感用户数据作为功能要求。不幸的是，与隐私相关的问题，如这些应用程序收集了多少用户数据，一旦获得用户数据是否得到安全处理，以及与谁共享收集到的用户数据，这些都不容易为客户所知。回答这些问题对于用户决定哪些电动滑板车租赁服务是值得信赖的个人隐私偏好至关重要。在本文中，我们对电动滑板车租赁应用程序进行了全面的分析，以回答与用户数据收集，第三方参与，隐私政策的有用性以及不同电动滑板车应用程序/服务的用户数据管理演变相关的研究问题。我们的研究结果将提高消费者对-à-vis的认识，他们与服务提供商分享数据，以换取收到的电动滑板车租赁服务，它还可以唤起服务提供商对其保护消费者隐私的努力和过程的更多问责制和透明度。
E-scooter rental services have significantly expanded the micromobility paradigm of short-distance urban and suburban transportation since their inception in 2017. Service providers around the world have followed a common rental model wherein customers (i.e., riders or users) download and install a mobile application for locating (finding) and renting e-scooters. Unlike many other app categories, e-scooter rental apps require a set of privacy-sensitive user data as a functional requirement. Unfortunately, privacy-related questions such as how much user data is being collected by these apps, is user data being safely handled once acquired, and with whom the collected user data is being shared are not readily known to customers. Answering such questions can be critical for users in determining which e-scooter rental services are sufficiently trustworthy per their personal privacy preferences. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of e-scooter rental apps to answer these and other research questions related to user data collection, third-party involvement, usefulness of privacy policies, and evolution of user data management by different e-scooter apps/services over time. Our findings will create awareness among consumers vis-à-vis the data they share with service providers in return for the received e-scooter rental service, and it can also evoke more accountability and transparency from service providers towards their efforts and processes on protecting consumer privacy.