论文标题
Apple App Store中隐私标签的纵向分析
Longitudinal Analysis of Privacy Labels in the Apple App Store
论文作者
论文摘要
In December of 2020, Apple started to require app developers to self-report privacy label annotations on their apps indicating what data is collected and how it is used.To understand the adoption and shifts in privacy labels in the App Store, we collected nearly weekly snapshots of over 1.6 million apps for over a year (July 15, 2021 -- October 25, 2022) to understand the dynamics of privacy label ecosystem.隐私标签启动近两年后，只有70.1％的应用具有隐私标签，但在测量期间，我们观察到增加了28％。隐私标签采用率主要是由新应用程序驱动的，而不是遵守较旧的应用程序。在带有标签的应用程序中，有18.1％收集用于跟踪用户的数据，38.1％收集链接到用户身份的数据，而42.0％的数据收集了未链接的数据。带有标签的应用程序中有一个令人惊讶的份额（41.8％）表明它们没有收集任何数据，虽然我们没有直接对应用程序进行直接分析以验证这一说法，但我们观察到，这些应用程序中的许多选择都可能不会因为被迫选择标签而没有收集标签，而不是选择标签，而不是该应用程序的真实行为。此外，对于在测量期内分配标签的应用程序几乎都不会更改其标签，而当它们这样做时，新标签表明数据收集多于更少。这表明隐私标签可能是开发人员的``一次设置''机制，这些机制可能实际上并未为用户提供做出明智的隐私决策所需的清晰度。
In December of 2020, Apple started to require app developers to self-report privacy label annotations on their apps indicating what data is collected and how it is used.To understand the adoption and shifts in privacy labels in the App Store, we collected nearly weekly snapshots of over 1.6 million apps for over a year (July 15, 2021 -- October 25, 2022) to understand the dynamics of privacy label ecosystem. Nearly two years after privacy labels launched, only 70.1% of apps have privacy labels, but we observed an increase of 28% during the measurement period. Privacy label adoption rates are mostly driven by new apps rather than older apps coming into compliance. Of apps with labels, 18.1% collect data used to track users, 38.1% collect data that is linked to a user identity, and 42.0% collect data that is not linked. A surprisingly large share (41.8%) of apps with labels indicate that they do not collect any data, and while we do not perform direct analysis of the apps to verify this claim, we observe that it is likely that many of these apps are choosing a Does Not Collect label due to being forced to select a label, rather than this being the true behavior of the app. Moreover, for apps that have assigned labels during the measurement period nearly all do not change their labels, and when they do, the new labels indicate more data collection than less. This suggests that privacy labels may be a ``set once'' mechanism for developers that may not actually provide users with the clarity needed to make informed privacy decisions.
