Wearable Activity Trackers: A Survey on Utility, Privacy, and Security
Abstract
Over the past decade, wearable activity trackers (WATs) have become increasingly popular. However, despite many research studies in different fields (such as psychology, health, and design), few have sought to jointly
examine the critical aspects of utility (i.e., benefits brought by these devices), privacy, and security (i.e., risks and vulnerabilities associated with them). To fill this gap, we reviewed 236 studies that researched the benefits
of using WATs, the implications for the privacy of users of WATs, and the security vulnerabilities of these devices. Our survey revealed that these devices expose users to several threats. For example, WAT data can be
mined to infer private information, such as the personality traits of the user. Whereas many works propose empirical findings about users’ privacy perceptions and their behaviors in relation to privacy, we found
relatively few studies researching technologies to better protect users’ privacy with these devices. This survey contributes to systematizing knowledge on the utility, privacy, and security of WATs, shedding light on the
state-of-the-art approaches with these devices, and discussing open research opportunities.
Origin | Publication funded by an institution |
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