Is your app snooping on you?

IN NOVEMBER 2018, a woman in Shanghai talked with her friend about a certain milk tea brand, and when she opened Eleme, a fast food delivery app on her smartphone, she found it recommended that brand at the top. A media investigation suggests that several similar apps might obtain users' preferences via their phones' microphone. Liu Quan, a senior researcher on network security at the China Center for Information Industry Development, comments:

Some media outlets have used "surveillance" to describe the incident, yet the companies that developed and run the apps deny this is what they are doing. Yet it is quite easy for apps to conduct such "snooping".

The majority of the apps require the user's permission to use microphone in order to run on a smartphone. As long as the user allows the app to use the "microphone" when asked for permission during the installation of an app, the app will be able to use it even when the app itself is not active. In other words, when you chat with friends, the app you are using may record your conversations. These are analyzed so they can be commercialized.

According to reports, when a journalist who tested the claims canceled his permission for the apps to have access to the microphone, they no longer suggested purchases based on his conversations.

And it is not just the microphone that can be used in this way, apps can also covertly use a phone's camera. In order to prevent this app "surveillance", it is necessary to strengthen the laws and regulations so that app developers and operators are more strictly regulated.

The smartphone industry is still essentially an emerging field, with new challenges arising now and then. Legislators need to consult experts more frequently and update the laws and regulations in time to better protect people's privacy.