After severe criticism regarding the manner in which it manages user data, Google made a lot of changes with regards to its smartphone operating system, Android. However, it seems that these changes were not nearly enough to try and prevent companies from taking advantage of users data, since a lot of Android apps have been noted to obtain your data even if you don’t give them permission to do so, something that is a gross violation of user privacy and will make it quite difficult for users to begin trusting Android related applications anytime soon.
A recent study conducted by the University of Calgary, UC3M and U.C. Berkeley is what is responsible for the revelation that so many Android apps are obtaining relevant data from users regardless of whether or not permission has been granted for this sort of thing. Some of the data that is scraped by these apps include your MAC address, your IMEI number as well as a wide variety of other forms of data as well. Apps usually used their SDK in order to scrape data, which is why it often becomes difficult to detect that such data is being obtained outside of a controlled testing environment that has been created for this sole purpose.
It should be noted that Google has been alerted to the fact that a lot of apps on the Android platform are using their SDKs to try and illicitly get their hands on user data, and the fact of the matter is that Google has made a lot of changes to the latest Android 10 which would prevent such things from occurring. However, the main problem here is that most users on the market do not use Android 10 at present, so changes and updates need to be made to older versions of the operating system as well to ensure the safety of all Android users.
Featured Photo: SOPA Images / Getty Images
Read next: Malicious Android Apps for installing ad-pushing malware are handled remotely
A recent study conducted by the University of Calgary, UC3M and U.C. Berkeley is what is responsible for the revelation that so many Android apps are obtaining relevant data from users regardless of whether or not permission has been granted for this sort of thing. Some of the data that is scraped by these apps include your MAC address, your IMEI number as well as a wide variety of other forms of data as well. Apps usually used their SDK in order to scrape data, which is why it often becomes difficult to detect that such data is being obtained outside of a controlled testing environment that has been created for this sole purpose.
It should be noted that Google has been alerted to the fact that a lot of apps on the Android platform are using their SDKs to try and illicitly get their hands on user data, and the fact of the matter is that Google has made a lot of changes to the latest Android 10 which would prevent such things from occurring. However, the main problem here is that most users on the market do not use Android 10 at present, so changes and updates need to be made to older versions of the operating system as well to ensure the safety of all Android users.
Featured Photo: SOPA Images / Getty Images
Read next: Malicious Android Apps for installing ad-pushing malware are handled remotely
