Privacy And Security Issues: An Assessment of the Awareness Level of Smartphone Users in Nigeria

Abstract

The use of smartphones in Nigeria has continued to increase daily and worsened during and after the Covid-19 pandemic that locked down even the developed nations. Like computers, smartphones keep the memory of users’ details like account details and transaction histories including passwords of their social media platforms. The huge volume of data being stored by smartphones brings about an unlimited number of privacy and security challenges. That is, security threats perpetrated by malicious actors or hackers is proportional to the ubiquity and adoption of smartphone in Nigeria. Therefore, this study aims to assess the awareness level of smartphone users in Nigeria regarding privacy and security issues associated with smartphones. By so doing, the study surveyed smartphone users across the 36 states and the FCT in Nigeria. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods. The quantitative research approach was utilized for data collection. While the qualitative approach was leveraged for descriptive analytics. The analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) to provide the graphical results. An existing mathematical model was therefore adapted and utilized to calculate the awareness level of smartphone users. The analytical outcome of the survey revealed that a considerable number of smartphone users in Nigeria are unaware of privacy and security issues allied to smartphones.