Keep on Lockin’ in the Free World: A Multi-National Comparison of Smartphone Locking

TitleKeep on Lockin’ in the Free World: A Multi-National Comparison of Smartphone Locking
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsHarbach, M., De Luca A., Malkin N., & Egelman S.
Published inProceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’16)
PublisherACM
Place PublishedNew York, NY, USA
Abstract

We present the results of an online survey of smartphone unlocking (N=8,286) that we conducted in eight different countries. The goal was to investigate differences in attitudes towards smartphone unlocking between different national cultures. Our results show that there are indeed significant differences across a range of categories. For instance, participants in Japan considered the data on their smartphones to be much more sensitive than those in other countries, and respondents in Germany were 4.5 times more likely than others to say that protecting data on their smartphones was important. The results of this study shed light on how motivations to use various security mechanisms are likely to differ from country to country.

URLhttps://blues.cs.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/article2.pdf
ICSI Research Group

Usable Security and Privacy