Monday, May 14, 2012

User Privacy - iToday app from Singapore

I've joined the bandwagon on Android recently and while trying to download few apps I realized some strange thing in "permissions".
Below is a screen shot of iToday - the app from Todayonline, a popular newspaper/tabloid in Singapore. 


I've put the text in the rectangle box. Basically the app & today wants to read the user phone number, serial number of the phone & whether a call is active, the number of call that is connected & the like


Not sure what is included in "& the like" but even without that it is very disturbing to see that they Today wants to know the phone number & call history/logs.

Why a newspaper wants to know the mobile phone number & call status? All they need is the internet access and nothing else. I can only conclude one thing which is "advertisements" or "selling the phone numbers".

I am not very comfortable with sharing my phone number without knowing how this would end up. So opted for "SG News" which simply needs "internet access".

This shows again the level of awareness & respect is given to "privacy" in singapore.

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