The hot debatable issue in the cyber world today is about the location tracking on mobile apps discussing the pros and cons of people’s privacy. In the recent news site that is prominent in India, it is said that aggregators have been sued together with telecom providers that sold collected data to third-party companies gathered from user’s locations for invading their privacy.
According to the news, the data collected includes information about the user’s behaviour, interests, address, religion, ethnicity, and health. Factual evidence of the user being on the location can connote and confirm the data’s relevancy to tie up and withhold their privacy. While other apps that use location tracking services can help locate people in an emergency, track health progress, and find a direction to unknown places.
This information becomes the topic for the thin line in determining which should be shared or privately stored. For app developers and aggregators, factual evidence is essential to create an app or market strategy to suffice the people’s need to ease their lives and for business sake.
But for others, disclosing the information to other parties can root to many possibilities of invasion of privacy, resulting in nuisance to their lives.
Given the situation, cybersecurity experts can create a study and develop a test app that can revolutionize and possibly end this debate. Their app confirmed that users may opt for the information they can share on the tracking app. Additional notification and confirmation pop out every time a piece of sensitive information is needed to be submitted. In this way, the user’s consent is highly regarded and can deny or share the information. Hence, privacy is not compromised. Unlike other apps, accepting their policy is a ‘must’ before the app can be used. Therefore, in the event of an investigation on privacy violation, the developer can claim that they cannot be held liable due to the user agreeing to the policies before using the app.
The test app’s creation was very timely as people are more inclined to use their mobile phones. In other news, giving app permission invades the privacy of the users. It is being used by malicious actors as the initial stage to inflict damage and compromise personal and affiliated business accounts of the victim.
Giving the user the opt-out ability or customising granting app permission will ensure that they are correctly aware and agreed to the terms and conditions before giving in their sensitive information. Also, it serves as a callout to regulate the transfer of collected data to third-party companies to avoid misuse and data leakage.
This topic’s scope and limitation are very relevant today, and the public should be adequately informed to ensure that this is understood by them. To protect the business and its users, a plain agreement must be laid on mutual grounds and beneficial to both parties.
