Short paper: initial recommendations for the design of privacy management tools for smartphones

The continuing rise in the popularity of smartphones has led to an accompanying rise in the exposure of users to privacy threats as in the case of unintended leakage of personal information from apps. To improve transparency and the ability of users to control data leakage, the design of privacy-enhancing tools aimed at reducing the burden of informed privacy-decisions should be grounded upon users’ tacit needs and preferences. To this end, the present study explores users’ personal perception and concerns toward privacy and their expectations. Initial recommendations include: (1) consideration of the preferences of users for preserving functionalities of their apps, informing users about both (2) the real benefits and actual possibility of using privacy management tools and (3) suspected applications’ data collection behaviours in a way that matches their real concerns and values.