So you know when apps ask you to allow or deny access to your data on your Android phone and you click deny? Well, the news is that they go ahead and ignore your request. These apps gain access to your data from your phone anyway. They gather information like your location and personal information.
These permissions are mostly a shield for the phone users to help safeguard their information. It helps users control how much information the apps gain access to. If a user does not want an app to access their call logs, for example, they should be able to deny access.
New research has revealed that over a thousand Android apps still go ahead to bypass the restrictions. They allow themselves access to get the user’s data anyway. This pretty much makes it more difficult for people who wish to maintain their privacy online.
A lot of apps owned by big tech companies have the personal data of millions of people. They have archives of information about who their friends are, their interests and where they have gone. Nevertheless, tech giants like Apple and Google release new features in their OS often to improve user privacy. Yet these apps still somehow find a way to bypass the restrictions.
Stricter regulations
International lawmakers are now trying to give stricter privacy regulations as regards these issues. The International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) researchers discovered that about 1,325 Android apps bypass these data privacy restrictions. They gather data from these devices despite the user denying the permissions.
The director of usable security and privacy research at ICSI, Serge Egelman, made the presentation on this at a conference. He said, “Fundamentally, consumers have very few tools and cues that they can use to reasonably control their privacy and make decisions about it. If app developers can just circumvent the system, then asking consumers for permission is relatively meaningless.”
Google says that it will address these issues in its new OS, Android Q that will be released later in the year 2019. The update is expected to address the issue of location data embedded in photos from apps. Most especially apps that require Wi-Fi access must also have permission for location info.