Privacy of mobile apps questioned, models at risk on adult sites, medical images poorly protected and no hiding from this court
Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Friday January 17th. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cyber security for ITWorldCanada.com.
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The world is awash with mobile apps promising to help make your life better, but at what price? A report out this week by the Norwegian Consumer Council suggests too many apps give away too much of your personal data to companies you may not know about. It looked at 10 apps including the dating app Grider, a makeup app called Perfect365 and a women’s period tracker called MyDays and found problems: Almost all sent personal and location data to advertising and analytics firms. In one case an app sent out user opinions on sexuality, drug use and politics.
There are two questions raised in this report: Do these practices violate the rules of the European Union’s new privacy regulations and do subscribers know what is being collected about them and where it goes? The report argues the online marketing and ad industry is out of control, that comprehensive tracking and profiling of consumers is exploitive and possibly illegal. One of the apps studied objected to the conclusions; others said they follow industry best practices. You should ask every time you downloaded an app if it is needed, does the app let you limit what data can go to third parties and what the developer does with your data. A link to the full report is in the text version of this ..
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