Permissions Explorer Study

A survey app by Harvard's Applied Social Media Lab at The Berkman Klein Center

Permissions Explorer is a research application from Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. The application allows the research team to partner with users to study the privacy implications of granting application access to different data permissions. In order to accomplish this core function, we ask users to grant the same permissions as social media apps, user generated content platforms, and image editing apps.

These permissions include:
Calendar and Reminders (view your calendar events and reminders)
Contacts (view your contacts)
Photos (view photos in your gallery)
Location (access your location)

The app performs a comprehensive analysis of this data. The app then shows a series of inferences about the participant using this information. Participants then fill out a survey.

Participants may choose to run the application multiple times to gain awareness of how granting different permissions affects their inferences.

The researchers will not see or store user data, and will not see or store these inferences without consent.

For more information about the study, our privacy policy, and how the research data is used: https://perms-explorer-study.berkmancenter.org/