Notifications are one of the most important features of mobile devices. Users receive multitudes of notifications every day. These notifications often carry sensitive content such as private messages, financial information, authentication tokens, etc. To understand privacy considerations related to notification content and delivery, we conducted a study in which participants (n = 206) described their preferences and practices regarding smartphone notifications. A majority of the participants (61%) reported at least one negative experience connected to notifications. We report on various privacy violations that arise due to notifications, such as unwanted information disclosure, intimacy breach, and inopportune intrusion. Our work contributes to a better understanding of privacy risks presented by notifications on mobile devices and points to several design suggestions for privacy-sensitive notification delivery mechanisms.

Increasing penetration of Internet-enabled smartphones in low-resource areas makes them an attractive platform for engaging emerging users. In this paper, we demonstrate how a voice forum for citizen journalism in rural India– previously accessible via an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system– can be naturally supported and enriched using a chatbot. Implemented using the WhatsApp Business API, the bot enables submission of both audio (with or without image) and video stories. Following review by moderators, stories are published on a website and social media sites, and can also be browsed interactively using the WhatsApp bot. This multi-way, intermediated model of communication expands the scope and functionality of typical WhatsApp groups while offering significant cost savings relative to IVR systems. In the first 9 weeks of a long-term deployment, the bot demonstrated high usability and acceptance and resulted in 218 published stories from 27 users.