Many smartphone apps don’t cost anything to download and use. But don’t be fooled: There’s still a price. “Your privacy is what’s paying for it,” says Brian Krupp. He’s a computer engineer at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio. Behind the scenes, he says, apps are “leaky.” They may deliberately collect more data than they need. Then they send those personal data to advertising companies — without a user’s knowledge — generating money for the app’s maker.
Krupp wants people to know where their data go. He recently led the development of a new online tool that does just that. He and his students call it SPEProxy. It tells people when their apps are sending data, which can help spot misuse. It also offers ways to better protect personal data. It gives phone users control over where their data go, and which data are shared.
The computer code that directs how data are used often is buried deep in an app’s software. The new tool developed by Krupp and his team acts like cyber “tweezers.” It can find that buried code, says Selcuk Uluagac. He did not work on the new tool but can appreciate its value. As a computer engineer at Florida International University, in Miami, he studies security for smart devices and other computer systems.
“We need such tools,” says Uluagac. Even though users click “I Agree” to let apps collect data, they have no way of knowing where those data go. They don’t know if or when their data are being misused. Krupp’s online tool can help raise a person’s awareness of all that sharing and selling, he says.
Behind the screen
Smartphones store a lot of personal data. Those devices know our names, the names of our friends, our address — and where we are, right now. Some apps use those data to do their job. A weather app needs to know where a person is to report the local forecast, for example. But those same apps may often send such data on to advertisers as well. Those advertisers will pay well to know how people behave and live.
Krupp agrees that it is important for phone and tablet users to know where their data go. Once data leave a device, “you can’t get it back,” he says. And that data theft may not be harmless. Those data may reveal when someone leaves home and when they get back. They can show how — and where — people spend their days. Social media sites often have access to a user’s images and posts.
Researchers have begun building smartphone programs that track the misuse of such data. However, those tools require someone to “jailbreak” their phone. That means they…
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