As admin, enable "Mobile services": Plugins ► Web Services ► Mobile Create a Token for one user: Click on Site administration ► Plugins ► Web services ► Manage tokens Next, you can do a CURL REST call simulating a WS client with the user. You need to replace the wstoken, and the URL of your moodle instance curl 'http://localhost/m/stable_master/webservice/rest/server.php?moodlewsrestformat=json' --data 'wsfunction=core_user_get_user_preferences&wstoken=ffbe3a3002f235bf9d01fd9369e10b66' | python -m "json.tool" Check that you have retrieved all the preferences presents in the user_preferences table for the current user Now, append to the parameter list a new parameter name=XYZ where XYZ is a preference returned in the previous steps. Check that now you receive only the value for that preference Now, try to retrieve a preference that does not exist, you should get a null value Now, create a token for an admin user Run the query again using that token passing as an additional parameter userid=X where X is the value of the user you did you first test with. Check that as an admin you can retrieve the settings for any user Now, create a token for another user (not admin) and check that you cannot retrieve settings from other users