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Many iOS Apps Found to Record Screen Activity Without Permissions

Popular iOS apps are said to be secretly recording your screen activity and capturing sensitive data in the process.

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Many iOS application have been found to record user’s on-screen activity without asking for permission, according to a TechCrunch report. Many applications like Air Canada, Hollister and Expedia, are recording every tap and swipe you make on the iPhone and in most cases the user doesn’t even realise anything like this is happening.

Many a times, the technology can allow the phone to record every action a user takes on an app and this can include their activity on a banking application where one would be entering sensitive financial information as well.

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Several other popular iOS apps, including Expedia, Air Canada, Hotels.com, and Hollister, have also been found recording user screen taps and swipes without informing users, even as Apple has always positioned itself as a champion of security and privacy.

The list goes on! Apps such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hotels.com and Singapore Airlines are using Glassbox, which is a customer experience analytics company, and only a handful of firms allow developers to embed "session replay" technology into their apps.

This technology essentially allows developers to record displays and review how users interacted with their app. It's obvious that these applications are collecting your data in some way. Some even monetise your data without your knowledge.

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It was found that in the case of Air Canada's iOS app, a mobile application analyst – cited by TechCrunch – found that the company was clearly exposing passport numbers and credit card information in each session replay being sent back.

TechCrunch further added that all of the apps which are involved in this controversy do not disclose the data the app has collected to the users, even if they're doing it simply for analytics purposes. There may be several other apps that do the same.

It's not an industry that's likely to go away any time soon as firms rely on this kind of session replay data to understand why things break, which can be costly in high-revenue situations.

While all of the apps that are submitted to the App Store need to backed by a privacy policy, the report did not find any of the apps the company reviewed mentioning screen recording in their policies. This means that there is absolutely no way the user can know their screen is being recorded by an app.

However, Abercrombie said that using Glassbox "helps support a seamless shopping experience, enabling us to identify and address any issues customers might encounter in their digital experience", according to 9to5Mac.

There are many other app developers who use tools from various other analytics companies like Glassbox, which offer session replaying. Although the data being collected could be for making the user experience better, it is always important that the users be made aware as to how much and what kind of data is escaping their device.

With inputs from IANS

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  iPhone 

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