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On the Trade-Off Between Privacy and Utility in Mobile Services: A Qualitative Study

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Computer Security (CyberICPS 2019, SECPRE 2019, SPOSE 2019, ADIoT 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 11980))

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Abstract

While the widespread use of mobile services offers a variety of benefits to mobile users, it also raises serious privacy concerns. We report the results of a user study that investigated the factors that influence the decision-making process pertaining to the trade-off between privacy and utility in mobile services. Through two focus groups, 16 individual interviews and a questionnaire survey involving 60 participants, the study identified awareness and knowledge of privacy risks, trust in service providers, desire for mobile services, and belief of cyber privacy as four factors that contribute to the perceived trade-off. The results also suggest that, with appropriate adoption, privacy-preserving tools can positively influence the privacy trade-off. In addition, our findings explore the cultural differences regarding privacy between participants from western countries (with the UK as the main representative) and China. In particular, the results suggest that participants from China are more likely to be comfortable with a government department protecting their individual privacy, while participants from western countries are more likely to wish to see such responsibility reside with some combination of individuals and non-governmental organisations.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Full survey text can be accessed here:https://yangliu.typeform.com/to/OEPM6f (English Version),https://yang46.typeform.com/to/PR3oWD (Chinese Version).

  2. 2.

    Individualistic countries emphasis on prioritization of self over the group.

  3. 3.

    Collectivistic countries emphasis on prioritization of the group over self.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants of the survey for their valuable comments. We are grateful to the reviewers for their constructive and helpful comments. We also wish to thank Norbert Nthala, Emma Osborn and Aaron Ceross for discussions that helped to improve this work. This work is partly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFB0802204), Key Research and Development Program for Guangdong Province, China (2019B010136001), and Basic Research Project of Shenzhen, China (JCYJ20180507183624136).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen, China

    Yang Liu

  2. Cyberspace Security Research Center, Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China

    Yang Liu

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Andrew Simpson

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  1. Yang Liu
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Correspondence to Yang Liu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Open University of Cyprus, Latsia, Cyprus

    Sokratis Katsikas

  2. IMT Atlantique, Brest, France

    Frédéric Cuppens

  3. IMT Atlantique, Brest, France

    Nora Cuppens

  4. University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece

    Costas Lambrinoudakis

  5. University of the Aegean, Mytilene, Greece

    Christos Kalloniatis

  6. University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    John Mylopoulos

  7. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Annie Antón

  8. University of Piraeus, Piraeus, Greece

    Stefanos Gritzalis

  9. Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Frank Pallas

  10. Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society, Berlin, Germany

    Jörg Pohle

  11. Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Angela Sasse

  12. Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

    Weizhi Meng

  13. University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Steven Furnell

  14. Télécom SudParis, Evry, France

    Joaquin Garcia-Alfaro

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Liu, Y., Simpson, A. (2020). On the Trade-Off Between Privacy and Utility in Mobile Services: A Qualitative Study. In: Katsikas, S., et al. Computer Security. CyberICPS SECPRE SPOSE ADIoT 2019 2019 2019 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11980. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42048-2_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42048-2_17

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