Researchers At MIT Document Privacy Abuses By Smart Phone Apps

This week, the Boston Globe reported the findings of a study by a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. The research discovered that several Android apps track consumers' activities without notice and without consent. Researchers Frances Zhang and Fuming Shih investigated 36 apps that run on smart phones with the Android operating system:

"... some popular apps for phones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system are continually collecting information without informing the phone’s owner. The popular game Angry Birds uses the phone’s GPS and Wi-Fi wireless networking features to track the owner’s location, even when he’s not playing the game... Another game, Bowman, collects information from the phone’s Internet browser, including what websites the owner has been visiting..."

The researchers hope to patent their app-testing process so it can be used to test a wider range of mobile device apps. The researchers did not test Apple mobile devices.

While improved software will help consumers monitor apps for compliance with privacy policies, a survey earlier this year documented sporadic and inconsistent access to privacy policies for mobile device apps across all major brands.

Comments

[Android Application Development]

Hey
I have been using an android smartphone and once while searching for a flashlight application it shows me that the app will have access to my personal details, contacts, web connection and more. I was wondering why a flashlight app will require all this information and hence I didn't downloaded the app.

[jacob]

They better get used to it, with the improvement of technology it's only going to worse by the day. They have to come up with something new or better to change things up.

[Hotcandy]

We have become obsessed with app numbers and if a platform does not support millions of apps, it is often considered to be inferior, that is a problem, so I agree with blogger say we don't need too many apps just find the correct we can use .

[Aaren]

Thank you so much for sharing good information for android users.