Beyond Permissions: Investigating Mobile Personalization with Simulated Personas

TL;DR

This paper introduces a sandbox system that uses sensor spoofing and simulated personas to audit, visualize, and enhance transparency of mobile app personalization based on inferred user behaviors.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach using sensor spoofing and persona simulation to audit and visualize app responses, promoting transparency and user empowerment.

Findings

Apps adapt to simulated personas in various domains.

Sensor spoofing reveals personalization cues.

System supports privacy and transparency efforts.

Abstract

Mobile applications increasingly rely on sensor data to infer user context and deliver personalized experiences. Yet the mechanisms behind this personalization remain opaque to users and researchers alike. This paper presents a sandbox system that uses sensor spoofing and persona simulation to audit and visualize how mobile apps respond to inferred behaviors. Rather than treating spoofing as adversarial, we demonstrate its use as a tool for behavioral transparency and user empowerment. Our system injects multi-sensor profiles - generated from structured, lifestyle-based personas - into Android devices in real time, enabling users to observe app responses to contexts such as high activity, location shifts, or time-of-day changes. With automated screenshot capture and GPT-4 Vision-based UI summarization, our pipeline helps document subtle personalization cues. Preliminary findings show measurable app adaptations across fitness, e-commerce, and everyday service apps such as weather and navigation. We offer this toolkit as a foundation for privacy-enhancing technologies and user-facing transparency interventions.