User-Driven Privacy Factors in Trigger-Action Apps: A Comparative Analysis with General IoT

The growing adoption of Trigger-Action Platforms (TAPs) in the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm has evolved users’ ability to automate their digital environments. However, this automation also introduces potential threats to users’ privacy. To enhance users’ privacy decisions and develop effective permission management systems, it is crucial to understand users’ comprehension of privacy factors in the IoT. This paper presents a literature review on privacy factors in the general IoT environment and compares them with users’ priorities and preferences for privacy factors specific to TAPs. To this end, we earlier conducted three Focus Groups (FGs) to gather users’ definitions and rankings of privacy factors in the TAPs context. Through the comparison with the general IoT literature, we highlight the similarities and differences in privacy factors between TAPs and traditional IoT applications. The outcomes of this study can inform the designers and developers with an emphasis on privacy-centric IoT TAPs.