Mobile Privacy Concerns; Is Your Phone's App Spying on You?

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Mobile Privacy Concerns; Is Your Phone's App Spying on You?

Submitted by Safe Internet on Thu, 2010-08-05 12:00

Guest post by: Linda Criddle, president of Safe Internet Alliance

Mobile security company, Lookout Inc., has unveiled their App Genome Project to "understand what mobile applications are doing and use that information to more quickly identify potential security threats."

And their findings are concerning.

After studying 300,000 Android and iPhone apps - and fully analyzed nearly 100,000 free apps - they found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users' phones and ship them off to third parties without notification.

Early results show differences in the amount and types of sensitive personal data being accessed by iPhone and Android applications, with iPhone users being more exposed to risk than Android users.

Stats include:
• 29% of free applications on Android have the capability to access a user’s location, compared with 33% of free applications on iPhone
• Nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to access user’s contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%)
• 47% of free Android apps include third party code, while that number is 23% on iPhone (Note: Examples of third party code includes code that enables mobile ads to be served and analytic tracking for developers).

Most of the risky code is written by 3rd parties that is added into the apps for specific purposes, like enabling the applications (particularly 'free' applications) to include advertising to provide a revenue stream. However, the inserted code collects data the advertisers want, often collecting more data on users than even the developers may realize, Lookout executives said.

"We found that not only users, but developers as well, don't know what's happening in their apps, even in their own apps, which is fascinating," said John Hering, CEO of the San Francisco-based Lookout.

Lookout exec.'s say part of the issue is that smart phones don't highlight for users all the types of data applications are collecting. IPhones, for example, only notify users when apps want to share location information.

Part of the problem is smart phones don't alert users to all the different types of data the applications running on them are collecting. For example, iPhones only alert users when applications want to use their locations. Android phones provide strong warnings when apps are first installed, but consumers are likely to skip over these as they rush to start using a new app.

Another part of the problem is a lack of consumer directed education to help mobile users understand the possible recognize the safety risks associated with blindly accepting the permission settings that mobile applications request. This includes understanding how to weigh the risks vs. benefits, understanding what specific terms in the fine print actually mean, and understanding the value in reading the fine print.

The issues uncovered by Lookout highlight the need for both mobile platform developers and watchdog organizations to identify and adopt best practices around transparency of any personal data collection, data storage, or data transmission.

The time is NOW.

There is an increasing focus by both consumers and regulators on issues related to personal privacy in online applications. We would do well to expand that scope to also include the privacy issues related to mobile applications.

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