Participatory Sensing or Sensing of Participation: Privacy Issues with Smartphone Apps Usage Completed Research

The convenience and mobility provided by smartphones have made them a preferred mode of conducting many daily activities and various types of applications for these devices have been developed. Apps on a smartphone can be used as a medium for tracking users' behaviors and collecting personal data about them. The collected data can potentially violate users' privacy. Many users may acknowledge this but their actions do not support that claim. The seeming inconsistency between professed privacy concerns and the use of smartphone apps may be more a consequence of ignorance rather than irrationality. In this study, an experiment is developed to understand how awareness about the privacy risks associated with the use of smartphone apps would alter the level of the use of apps. Our empirical results support the assertions that awareness significantly increases privacy concerns and reduces inclination to use apps. Implications of these findings are discussed.