Something as simple as changing your Android phone’s wallpaper or downloading a ringtone could transmit personal data about you, including your location, without your knowledge.
Sound farfetched? It’s not: About 15 of 30 randomly selected, popular, free Android apps sent sent users? private information to remote advertising servers and two-thirds of the apps handled data in ambiguous ways, say researchers.
The researchers at Duke, Intel Labs and Penn State University, created a tool called TaintDroid that identifies apps transmitting private data to distant locations. TaintDroid monitors how applications access and use your location, microphone, camera, phone numbers in your contact list. The tool also provides feedback once an app is newly installed, letting you know if the app is transmitting data.
“This automatic feedback gives users greater insight into what their mobile applications are doing and could help users decide whether they should consider uninstalling an app,” says Peter Gilbert, a graduate student in computer science at Duke University who’s working on the project. The TaintDroid program isn’t publicly available yet.
The latest data supports a study published in June by mobile security company SMobile Systems that found 20 percent of the then-available 48,000 third-party applications for the Android operating system provided sensitive or private information to outside sources.
Data collection practices in apps are increasingly becoming a major privacy issue for consumers. In July, a mobile security firm called Lookout identified a free wallpaper Android app, Jackeey, that allegedly gathered data about its users, including their phone numbers, carrier subscriber identifiers and phone number of their voicemail accounts. The app then sent the information to a website based in China. The Jackeey app is estimated to have anywhere from 1 to 4 million downloads.
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/fZosyrpX7Mc/
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