{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,26]],"date-time":"2026-01-26T06:03:47Z","timestamp":1769407427522,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":0,"publisher":"Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium Advisory Board","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,1]],"date-time":"2026-01-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1767225600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PoPETs"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Smart-home automations enable users to customize smart devices to react automatically to people, the environment, and more. For example, an automation might adjust the lights when people are at home or enable a garage door to open  by voice command. While automations offer convenience and accessibility, they can also inadvertently expose users to security and privacy risks, such as leaking sensitive data or allowing untrusted parties to control users' devices. Prior work has shown that information flow analysis is a promising technique for identifying these kinds of risks, hypothesizing that the analysis would be yet more effective if it could differentiate between devices located in different places in the home. We tested this hypothesis by developing a tool that extends prior information flow analysis approaches to account for device location. We conducted an interview study with 22 participants to build a dataset of home automations to establish a ground truth to evaluate the tool. We found that incorporating device location leads to an improved analysis that identifies more of the vulnerabilities users care about (F1 score 0.74) compared to prior work (F1 score 0.29). Our results demonstrate the feasibility of incorporating device location into an information flow analysis and, perhaps more importantly, suggest additional ways to prevent security and privacy risks beyond controlling potentially unsafe information flows.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.56553\/popets-2026-0018","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,25]],"date-time":"2026-01-25T18:59:00Z","timestamp":1769367540000},"page":"338-365","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Location-Enhanced Information Flow for Home Automations"],"prefix":"10.56553","volume":"2026","author":[{"given":"McKenna","family":"McCall","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Colorado State University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ben","family":"Weinshel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Carnegie Mellon University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kunlin","family":"Cai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Los Angeles"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Ying","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Los Angeles"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Eric","family":"Zeng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Georgetown University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Devika","family":"Manohar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Carnegie Mellon University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lujo","family":"Bauer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Carnegie Mellon University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Limin","family":"Jia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Carnegie Mellon University"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Yuan","family":"Tian","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"University of California, Los Angeles"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"35752","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1]]},"container-title":["Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies"],"original-title":[],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,25]],"date-time":"2026-01-25T18:59:05Z","timestamp":1769367545000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/petsymposium.org\/popets\/2026\/popets-2026-0018.php"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,1]]},"references-count":0,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1]]}},"alternative-id":["10.56553\/popets-2026-0018"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.56553\/popets-2026-0018","relation":{},"ISSN":["2299-0984"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2299-0984","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,1]]}}}