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According to the Panoptispy study, Android developers create screenshots and video videos with no user knowledge.
Unbeknownst to users, many applications create screen shots and screenshots. A disturbing intrusion into the privacy of users, according to researchers Elleen Pan, Jingjing Ren, Martina Lindorfer, Christo Wilson and David Choffnes. In the study of researchers, 17,260 apps from Google Play, AppChina, Mi.com and Anzhi were monitored for sending multimedia data in use.
That many applications can monitor their users is not a new charge. Great attention has elicited a technology probably only experimentally used by advertising companies,
the user of sound recordings is to locate
, Also known is a Spanish football app that tries to track down illegal football emissions by micro.
This audition via Sound Beacon was made possible by the authors during their study "
Panoptispy: Characterize audio and video exfiltration from Android apps
"But do not prove.On the other hand, when monitoring the application network traffic, they noticed some tools that sent screenshots or video clips. , a clear intervention in the privacy of users.
Behind the transfers, there are no hackers, but specialized companies in the user experience. An application developer like the company GoPuff declared uses a technology from the company called AppSee to improve the usability of its application. To see which action an application has overwritten or that a user has canceled his purchase, the actions of the user are logged during its use. What was probably known to a few users and, of course, a clear violation of the right to privacy was that the registration was not communicated to users. After a consultation, App See has adjusted its terms of use. Further examination, however, remains critics of the researchers, however, remains little, as
Gizmodo already noted
at. Obviously, these are more isolated cases.
In another case as well, the transfers could be attributed to the developers of the applications. Thus, two conference applications sent a user input. Again, it was a usability application, the TestFairy tool. In addition, this app should not have appeared with this feature in the Play Store. Both development tools, AppSee and TestFairy are also available for iOS, but until now, there are no studies on iOS apps.
Our opinion: The study exaggerates a bit regarding privacy. It can not be excluded that even hackers use features such as screenshots and videos. However, these cases were obviously botched or overzealous developers, who once again did not pay much attention to data protection. It is alarming, however, that Android seems to make it very easy for developers to record unrecognized screenshots and screen shots. Even Apple was six months ago a lax manipulation of user actions
accused
, Apple recently put more emphasis on visual cues with iOS 11, when a third-party application uses a camera, microphone or GPS module of the iPhone, while the colored bar with the Application name appears at the top of the screen.
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