![]() You can read Motherboard’s full story here. By conducting network traffic analysis, Motherboard verified that at least three of those apps did at some point send location data to X-Mode, although none of the versions currently on Google Play do so. O’Brien’s findings corroborate that and also point to several more Muslim-focused apps as containing X-Mode. In November, Motherboard found that another previously unreported Muslim prayer app called Qibla Compass sent data to X-Mode. military) was first disclosed by Motherboard, which first reported that a popular prayer app with more than 98 million downloads worldwide sent granular movement data to X-Mode. X-Mode’s ties to military contractors (and by extension the U.S. But not all apps that use X-Mode disclose to their users that their location data may end up with the data broker or is sold to military contractors. Users opt-in to this tracking by accepting the app’s terms of use and privacy policies. X-Mode pays app developers to include its tracking code, known as a software development kit, or SDK, in exchange for collecting and handing over the user’s location data. intelligence bought access to commercial location data to search for Americans’ past movements without first obtaining a warrant. The new research, now published, is believed to be the broadest review to date of apps that collaborate with X-Mode, one of dozens of companies in a multibillion-dollar industry that buys and sells access to the location data collected from ordinary phone apps, often for the purposes of serving targeted advertising.īut X-Mode has faced greater scrutiny for its connections to government work, amid fresh reports that U.S. transit map app that had been installed hundreds of thousands of times was still downloadable from Google Play even though it was still sending location data to X-Mode. Some of the apps were still sending location data to X-Mode as recently as December when Apple and Google told developers to remove X-Mode from their apps or face a ban from the app stores.īut weeks after the ban took effect, one popular U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |