An application or app is a program, usually provided by a user interface, designed to perform a specific task on a device (smartphone, laptop, tablet). Apps are widely used for various purposes, including communication, entertainment and productivity. They are becoming increasingly central to the operation of the digital economy.
However, the app market is not regulated, and so precaution is advised before downloading and installing any new app. Privacy concerns include data collection; apps may need to collect and store personal information on the user, such as IP address, location and usage habits, to deliver their function. Others may collect such data as a hidden payment for delivering a free service (which the user has signed up to by agreeing to the terms of service) and still others may do so without any form of consent at all. Such apps may also contain third-party trackers to collect information about users’ behaviour. Additionally, apps are not guaranteed to have strong security protection in place (and some do use weakly encrypted connections or are vulnerable to interception). Some apps can be malicious, containing malware or other malicious software by design, or they may do so without the intent of the app designer.
p. 19Further reading
Feal, A., Calciati, P., Vallina-Rodriguez, N., Troncoso, C. and Gorla, A., 2020. Angel or devil? A privacy study of mobile parental control apps. In: Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2, 314–35. https://doi.org/10.2478/popets-2020-0029.
Ren, J., Rao, A., Lindorfer, M., Legout, A. and Choffnes, D., 2016. ReCon: revealing and controlling PII leaks in mobile network traffic. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, New York: ACM, 361–74. https://doi.org/10.1145/2906388.2906392.
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Feal, A., Calciati, P., Vallina-Rodriguez, N., Troncoso, C. and Gorla, A., 2020. Angel or devil? A privacy study of mobile parental control apps. In: Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2, 314–35. https://doi.org/10.2478/popets-2020-0029.
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Ren, J., Rao, A., Lindorfer, M., Legout, A. and Choffnes, D., 2016. ReCon: revealing and controlling PII leaks in mobile network traffic. In: Proceedings of the 14th Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services, New York: ACM, 361–74. https://doi.org/10.1145/2906388.2906392.
