Consistently handling geographical user data: Merging of coreferent POIs

Background: Cloud storage is generally used to provide on-demand services with sufficient scalability in an efficient network environment, and various encryption algorithms are typically applied to protect the data in the cloud. However, it is non-trivial to obtain the original data after encryption and efficient methods are needed to access the original data. Methods: In this paper, we propose a new user-controlled and efficient encrypted data sharing model in cloud storage. It preprocesses user data to ensure the confidentiality and integrity based on triple encryption scheme of CP-ABE ciphertext access control mechanism and integrity verification. Moreover, it adopts secondary screening program to achieve efficient ciphertext retrieval by using distributed Lucene technology and fine-grained decision tree. In this way, when a trustworthy third party is introduced, the security and reliability of data sharing can be guaranteed. To provide data security and efficient retrieval, we also combine active user with active system. Results: Experimental results show that the proposed model can ensure data security in cloud storage services platform as well as enhance the operational performance of data sharing. Conclusion: The proposed security sharing mechanism works well in an actual cloud storage environment.

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Tracing or Tracking? A Preliminary Analysis of COVID-19 Outbreak Tracker Apps on Android and User Privacy (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.19662 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Alex Akinbi ◽

Ehizojie Ojie

Keyword(s):

Preliminary Analysis ◽

Service Providers ◽

User Participation ◽

Memory Storage ◽

Phone Call ◽

Contact Tracing ◽

Privacy Rights ◽

User Privacy ◽

Android Apps ◽

User Data

BACKGROUND Technology using digital contact tracing apps has the potential to slow the spread of COVID-19 outbreaks by recording proximity events between individuals and alerting people who have been exposed. However, there are concerns about the abuse of user privacy rights as such apps can be repurposed to collect private user data by service providers and governments who like to gather their citizens’ private data. OBJECTIVE The objective of our study was to conduct a preliminary analysis of 34 COVID-19 trackers Android apps used in 29 individual countries to track COVID-19 symptoms, cases, and provide public health information. METHODS We identified each app’s AndroidManifest.xml resource file and examined the dangerous permissions requested by each app. RESULTS The results in this study show 70.5% of the apps request access to user location data, 47% request access to phone activities including the phone number, cellular network information, and the status of any ongoing calls. 44% of the apps request access to read from external memory storage and 2.9% request permission to download files without notification. 17.6% of the apps initiate a phone call without giving the user option to confirm the call. CONCLUSIONS The contributions of this study include a description of these dangerous permissions requested by each app and its effects on user privacy. We discuss principles that must be adopted in the development of future tracking and contact tracing apps to preserve the privacy of users and show transparency which in turn will encourage user participation.

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Afterword

The Oxford Handbook of Social Media and Music Learning ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190660772.013.41 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 680-683

Author(s):

Janice L. Waldron ◽

Stephanie Horsley ◽

Kari K. Veblen

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Media Use ◽

Careful Selection ◽

Social Media Use ◽

Pedagogical Tools ◽

The Future ◽

User Data ◽

Selection Of ◽

Data Surface

We all feel the implications of the force of social media—for good and for ill—in our lives and in our professional world. At the time of this writing, Facebook continues with its struggle to “clean up its act” as more revelations surrounding breaches of trust and hacked user data surface in the news and various countries attempt to hold Facebook to account. Despite this, social media use continues to grow exponentially, and the potential for responsible, ethical, and transparent social media to transform the ways in which we interact with and learn from each other increase with it. As we wait to see what the future holds for social media in society, we are reminded once again that it is the careful selection of pedagogical tools such as social media, as well the guided awareness of the challenges and benefits of those tools, that remains constant, even as tools may change, disappear, or fall out of fashion.

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Big data for climate action or climate action for big data?

Big Data & Society ◽

10.1177/2053951720982032 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 205395172098203

Author(s):

Maria I Espinoza ◽

Melissa Aronczyk

Keyword(s):

Big Data ◽

Environmental Sustainability ◽

Global Climate ◽

Intergovernmental Organizations ◽

Address Climate Change ◽

Data Practices ◽

Climate Action ◽

User Data ◽

Climate Crisis ◽

Depth Interviews

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability.

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Trust in open data applications through transparency

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/1461444820979708 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 146144482097970

Author(s):

Christian Wiencierz ◽

Marco Lünich

Keyword(s):

Smart City ◽

Smart Cities ◽

Open Data ◽

Application Process ◽

Data Application ◽

User Data ◽

Data Ecosystem

Open data provide great potential for society, for example, in the field of smart cities, from which all citizens might profit. The trust of these citizens is important for the integration of various data, like sensitive user data, into an open data ecosystem. In the following study, we analyzed whether transparency about the application of open data promotes trust. Furthermore, we formulated guidelines on how to create transparency regarding open data in an ethical way. Using an open-data-based fictitious smart city app, we conducted an experiment analyzing to what extent communication of the technical open data application process and the ethical self-commitment for the transparent communication of data application affect trust in the app’s provider. The results indicate that the more information users obtain regarding the use of open data, the more trustworthy they perceive the app provider to be, and the more likely they are to use the app.

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Analyzing User Digital Emotions from a Holy versus Non-Pilgrimage City in Saudi Arabia on Twitter Platform

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11156846 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (15) ◽

pp. 6846

Author(s):

Kashish Ara Shakil ◽

Kahkashan Tabassum ◽

Fawziah S. Alqahtani ◽

Mudasir Ahmad Wani

Keyword(s):

Saudi Arabia ◽

Behavioral Differences ◽

Initial Attempt ◽

Bilingual Dictionary ◽

Metropolitan Cities ◽

Emotion Lexicon ◽

User Data ◽

Regional Location ◽

Media Platform ◽

Holy City

Humans are the product of what society and their environment conditions them into being. People living in metropolitan cities have a very fast-paced life and are constantly exposed to different situations. A social media platform enables individuals to express their emotions and sentiments and thus acts as a reservoir for the digital emotion footprints of its users. This study proposes that the user data available on Twitter has the potential to showcase the contrasting emotions of people residing in a pilgrimage city versus those residing in other, non-pilgrimage areas. We collected the Arabic geolocated tweets of users living in Mecca (holy city) and Riyadh (non-pilgrimage city). The user emotions were classified on the basis of Plutchik’s eight basic emotion categories, Fear, Anger, Sadness, Joy, Surprise, Disgust, Trust, and Anticipation. A new bilingual dictionary, AEELex (Arabic English Emotion Lexicon), was designed to determine emotions derived from user tweets. AEELex has been validated on commonly known and popular lexicons. An emotion analysis revealed that people living in Mecca had more positivity than those residing in Riyadh. Anticipation was the emotion that was dominant or most expressed in both places. However, a larger proportion of users living in Mecca fell under this category. The proposed analysis was an initial attempt toward studying the emotional and behavioral differences between users living in different cities of Saudi Arabia. This study has several other important applications. First, the emotion-based study could contribute to the development of a machine learning-based model for predicting depression in netizens. Second, behavioral appearances mined from the text could benefit efforts to identify the regional location of a particular user.

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Co-Creation Facilitates Translational Research on Upper Limb Prosthetics

Prosthesis ◽

10.3390/prosthesis3020012 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 110-118

Author(s):

Hannah Jones ◽

Sigrid Dupan ◽

Maxford Coutinho ◽

Sarah Day ◽

Deirdre Desmond ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Upper Limb ◽

Rehabilitation Centre ◽

Stakeholder Collaboration ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Academic Knowledge ◽

Upper Limb Prosthesis ◽

The People ◽

User Data ◽

Multi Stakeholder ◽

Upper Limb Prosthetics

People who either use an upper limb prosthesis and/or have used services provided by a prosthetic rehabilitation centre, hereafter called users, are yet to benefit from the fast-paced growth in academic knowledge within the field of upper limb prosthetics. Crucially over the past decade, research has acknowledged the limitations of conducting laboratory-based studies for clinical translation. This has led to an increase, albeit rather small, in trials that gather real-world user data. Multi-stakeholder collaboration is critical within such trials, especially between researchers, users, and clinicians, as well as policy makers, charity representatives, and industry specialists. This paper presents a co-creation model that enables researchers to collaborate with multiple stakeholders, including users, throughout the duration of a study. This approach can lead to a transition in defining the roles of stakeholders, such as users, from participants to co-researchers. This presents a scenario whereby the boundaries between research and participation become blurred and ethical considerations may become complex. However, the time and resources that are required to conduct co-creation within academia can lead to greater impact and benefit the people that the research aims to serve.

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