An Investigation Of Location Privacy In Mobile Applications

Context

Recently, several news articles showed that many mobile applications collect location data from their users without their consent. This is a severe violation of privacy, as the location data can be used to track the user’s movements and habits. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the location privacy of mobile applications to understand the extent of the problem.

Motivation

The investigation of location privacy in mobile applications is essential to understand the extent of the problem. SRF shared a report that showed that many mobile applications collect location data from their users. We got a list of mobile applications that collect location data from their users and want to investigate the location collection methods of these applications.

Goal

What do we want to achieve?

• Investigate the location privacy of mobile applications.
• Quantify the illegal collection of location data of mobile applications.

What do we want the student to deliver?

• Develop a tool that analyzes the location privacy of mobile applications.

Requirements

What do we want the student to bring to the project?

• Good Programming skills in Python and Java
• Basic Knowledge about Mobile Software Engineering
• Interest in Reverse Engineering and Dynamic Code Analysis
• Interest in Learning Frida and Android Security

Pointers

What resources and other related work could help the student to work on this project?

•  SRF: Spion in der Hosentasche: Tausende Apps verraten unseren Standort
•  Privacy Detective: Sniffing Out Your Data Leaks for Android