Ensuring User Privacy in the Digital Age: A Quality-Centric Approach to Tracking and Data Protection
Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE 2024
Vitālijs Teže, Ērika Nazaruka

In the contemporary digital landscape, the pervasive practice of user tracking and the consequent erosion of data protection present significant challenges to user privacy. This paper introduces ’Privacy Risk Assessor’ a software tool designed to evaluate and enhance online privacy. Addressing the dynamics of user tracking, the tool analyses websites for privacy-threatening metrics in the context of existing tracking mechanisms. Employing a methodological approach, the tool’s architecture enables efficient processing and adaptability to tracking techniques and privacy regulations. The research focuses on key metrics of quality attributes including security, usability, trust, reliability, and performance, providing actionable insights into privacy risks. An evaluation was conducted on a dataset of 492 Latvian websites, with an emphasis on diverse privacy-related factors. The study revealed insights into prevalent privacy practices and underscored the tool’s effectiveness in real-world scenarios. The ’Privacy Risk Assessor’ stands out for its possibility to be integrated into web development process, offering developers and end-users ability to proactively measure potential privacy threats.


Keywords
Digital Privacy, User Tracking, Data Protection, Privacy Risk Assessment, GDPR Compliance, Web Analytics, Online Security, Privacy-Focused Software.
DOI
10.5220/0012565800003687

Teže, V., Nazaruka, Ē. Ensuring User Privacy in the Digital Age: A Quality-Centric Approach to Tracking and Data Protection. In: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering - Volume 1: ENASE, France, Angers, 28-29 April, 2024. Portugāle: SciTePress, INSTICC, 2024, pp.299-306. ISBN 978-989-758-696-5. Available from: doi:10.5220/0012565800003687

Publication language
English (en)
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