Research and Publications

Our research focuses on designing static program analyses to ensure data protection in Android apps.

With the rise of privacy regulations like the EU’s GDPR, developers face increasing pressure to implement privacy-by-design measures. However, many lack legal expertise and struggle to understand which data to protect or how to enforce it, as seen in loosely written privacy policies and Google Play data safety sections.

Static analysis thoroughly examines source code before execution, covering all possible paths. We extend this technique to help developers proactively safeguard user data and assist legal experts, such as Data Protection Officers, in conducting efficient privacy assessments.

If you are an app developer, Data Protection Officer, or auditor interested in collaborating, please contact me.

Publications

A-Mobile@ASE’24 Mugdha Khedkar, Ambuj Kumar Mondal, and Eric Bodden. 2024. Do Android App Developers Accurately Report Collection of Privacy-Related Data? In Proceedings of the 39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 176–186. https://doi.org/10.1145/3691621.3694949 (Preprint)

A-Mobile@ASE’24 Mugdha Khedkar, Michael Schlichtig, and Eric Bodden. 2024. Advancing Android Privacy Assessments with Automation. In Proceedings of the 39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering Workshops. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 218–222. https://doi.org/10.1145/3691621.3694953 (Preprint)

MOBILESoft’24 Mugdha Khedkar and Eric Bodden. 2024. Toward an Android Static Analysis Approach for Data Protection. In Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 11th International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 65–68. https://doi.org/10.1145/3647632.3651389 (Preprint)

ICSE-Companion’23 Mugdha Khedkar. 2023. Static Analysis for Android GDPR Compliance Assurance. 2023 IEEE/ACM 45th International Conference on Software Engineering: Companion Proceedings, Melbourne, Australia, 197–199. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-Companion58688.2023.00054 (Preprint, Poster)

You can also find my publications on my Google Scholar page or DBLP.

Preprints

ASE Journal Mugdha Khedkar, Michael Schlichtig, Nihad Atakishiyev et al. Assessor View: Introducing Tool Support for Android Privacy Assessments, 22 April 2025, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-6323701/v1 (Invited journal extension of a peer-reviewed workshop paper)

ASE Journal Mugdha Khedkar, Ambuj Kumar Mondal, Eric Bodden et al. A Study of Privacy-Related Data Collected by Android Apps, 02 December 2024, PREPRINT (Version 1) available at Research Square https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5454195/v1 (Invited journal extension of a peer-reviewed workshop paper)

Research Interests

I have worked on static program analysis, data privacy and protection, and conducted empirical and usability-driven studies surrounding such analyses. I am open to working on broader topics in the future.

I’m actively seeking postdoctoral positions starting summer or fall 2026. If you’re interested in collaborating or have opportunities, please feel free to get in touch!