Smartphones represent one of the best things we have in our society today. But since there’s no such thing as perfection in this world, any good thing also has a “dark side”. Smartphones might have many downsides, some people might argue, but let’s not try to be too negativistic.
Insider tells us about the dangers of the AppMetrica app created by Russia’s largest internet firm. In this way, phone users might be getting tracked by Russian authorities. We’re talking about Yandex’s software development kit, to be more precise. Therefore, you might be willing to get rid of the app from your phone if you’ve been attracted enough by what it has to offer. The dangerous app seems to be hard to remove, however, as it can infiltrate games, messaging software, and even VPNs.
Servers from Russia and Finland might receive the user data
Experts are now worried that the user data that AppMetrica collects will be sent to servers from Russia and Finland. Obviously, that data can be used by Russian authorities to monitor the lives of people, which is clearly not a comfortable thought.
Zach Edwards is the researcher making the discovery, and he explained for the Financial Times:
The AppMetrica SDK claims to provide appropriate services, all while phoning home to Moscow with deeply invasive metadata details that can be used to track people across websites and apps.
Here’s what Yandex had to say for Insider:
Data received by AppMetrica from app developers is stored in a distributed storage platform both in Finland and in Russia, as stated in our Privacy Policy. The data itself is non-personalized and very limited. Yandex cannot identify users based on the information collected.
How about you? Are you more fearful now that your activity might be tracked?