In the framework of the Conferência Ibérica de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (CISTI 2025), held in Lisbon from 16 to 19 June, Pablo Abel Criado Lozano, researcher of the Privacy Engineering Group (IngPriv) of the School of Computer Engineering of the University of Valladolid, participated with his project entitled Study of the impact of mobile applications on privacy based on code analysis.
The paper was presented by Mercedes Martínez González, PI of the App-PI Project (App Privacy Impact). This study proposes a PET (Privacy-Enhancing Technology) tool that applies static code analysis techniques to analyse mobile applications and verify compliance with privacy policies.
This PET tool analyses what the app says in its privacy policy, what permissions it requests from the system and what its code actually does in practice.
In this way, what this tool allows is to detect discrepancies between what is declared and what is executed, and it proposes a formal methodology that connects permissions, data and resources to identify possible privacy risks. It seeks to facilitate regulatory compliance, improve transparency and offer guarantees to both users and developers.