Robocall blocking apps caught sending your private data without permission

guest · Aug 9, 2019

Robocall blocking apps caught sending your private data without permission
August 9, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/09/m...ps-send-your-private-data-without-permission/

Robocall-blocking apps promise to rid your life of spoofed and spam phone calls. But are they as trustworthy as they claim to be?

Dan Hastings, a senior security consultant at cybersecurity firm NCC Group, analyzed some of the most popular robocall-blocking apps — including TrapCall, Truecaller and Hiya — and found egregious privacy violations.
But many of these apps, said Hastings, send user or device data to third-party data analytics companies — often to monetize your information — without your explicit consent, instead burying the details in their privacy policies.

He also found Truecaller and Hiya uploaded device data — device type, model and software version, among other things — before a user could accept their privacy policies.
Many of the other apps aren’t much better. Several other apps that Hastings tested immediately sent some data to Facebook as soon as the app loaded.
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“Privacy policies are great, but apps need to get better about abiding by them,” said Hastings.
“If most people took the time to read and try to understand privacy policies for all the apps they use (and are able to understand them!), they might be surprised to see how much these apps collect,” he said.

Truecaller spokesperson Manan Shah confirmed it was sending data when the app was opened but later submitted a fix, which is now live. “We comply to Apple guidelines,” said the spokesperson.
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