Quantifying Attributes of Privacy Policies Using Contextual Integrity

Abstract

Identifying vulnerabilities in systems is a critical step in safeguarding users’ privacy but is often only accomplished after an adversary exploiting an existing flaw in a system. Contextual Integrity provides a framework for understanding information flows which are appropriate to the privacy norms associated with a given context. By using the framework which Contextual Integrity affords, I discovered a way to potentially model the privacy characteristics of a service’s privacy policy in a systematic and quantitative manner. This characterization may render privacy policies more transparent for users and assist developers in making their services more secure.