Researchers from LASIGE: Diogo Marques, Tiago Guerreiro and Luís Carriço and University of British Columbia (UBC), recruited 102 individuals and asked them to recall a past situation in which they accessed the phone of someone they know, or someone they know accessed theirs. Participants were asked to describe the events leading up to the incident, how the snooping was conducted and what happened to the relationship afterwards.

“The fact that people snoop is widely known, but we know much less about exactly why they do what they do, and about the eventual impact on their relationships,” said Beschastnikh (UBC), a professor of electrical and computer engineering who studies the human and social aspects of cybersecurity and privacy.

“This study contributes new insights to that discussion straight from those who have experienced snooping, and hopefully prompts more research down the line”. It also highlight the critical role of human factors in digital security.

The study, “Vulnerability & Blame: Making Sense of Unauthorized Access to Smartphones” was presented at the ACM CHI 2019 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems conference, May 4-9.

Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190530101154.htm