Forensic Investigation – The Shocking State of Privacy in Safety Apps

FYI, this post is essentially an advertisement. The one app found to be the “good” one which doesn’t share data is also the same company that did the research and published the report, which means they could have manipulated any number of data points to get the result that favors them, such as the criteria for what a “top 20” app is, the number of apps to analyze (20), etc.<p>Feel like it should be disclosed in the title; maybe my fault, but I got pretty far into reading this before realizing it was essentially an ad.

I don&#x27;t think this is at all shocking when there&#x27;s no public awareness, no laws against it outside the EU, no consumer recourse, and no indication that anyone wants to fix it.

I found an advertising SDK inside the factory installed AVG &quot;antivirus&quot; Android app that could: #Determine the users location #access the phones text-to-speech API&#x27;s and view any custom words added by the user #access and read anything the user copied&#x2F;pasted to&#x2F;from pasteboard (clipboard) #Record audio from the phones microphone

They are misusing the term &quot;Forensic&quot; which is the application of a science for the purpose of law. Did they do this to further a criminal or civil action? It seems they just did some testing - maybe they have the &quot;investigation&quot; part correct.

I’m not seeing a lot of insight in this article or how the analysis was done. Also, the use of the term forensic bothers me. Does the author understand the meaning of the word? Where’s the crime?

From Parachutes privacy policy:<p>&gt; GDPR: <i>Parachute’s privacy practices exceed the level set by GDPR and similar legislation. Because Parachute does not install any cookies and does not use any tracking, analytics, marketing or advertising services, it is does not need to display any annoying privacy-related forced consent popup notices.</i><p>This is just sad. Ad-tech is pulling all its strings to push public opinion against pro-privacy legislation and you take their story for a ride towards self promotion. Let me reword this for you:<p>----<p>GDPR: Parachute believes strongly in the privacy practices set by GDPR and similar legislation but is neither incorporated in any nation with such laws, nor does it subjugate itself to a legal framework of adequacy, with the sole exception of this privacy policy. Privacy Shield Certifications are a scam anyway. Parachute offers a direct contact for privacy related issues, but does not accept the authority of your local data protection agency.Please note that with the ToS you accept the governing Law of the State of New York, and with our second &quot;legal text privacy policy&quot; you explicitly authorize the export of personal information to the USA.<p>AdTech: The Parachute app does not use any tracking, analytics, marketing or advertising services, including persistent cookies, which would require additional explicit consent. If you are wondering why there is no annoying privacy-related consent gathering popup, that is because we believe in privacy and data minimization and only use what is absolutely essential to provide our service.<p>Essential Third Party Services: ...