Tens of thousands of peeks in ten minutes: Don’t let the mobile app continue to peep
Accessed mobile phone photos and files nearly 25,000 times in more than ten minutes; tried to read the address book nearly 7000 times within one hour... Recently, a junior student was surprised to find that some of the mobile apps he was using were Obtain private information frequently and secretly. ("CCTV News" June 8)
As we all know, in daily life, while enjoying the convenience of the mobile phone app, we are also constantly giving up personal information such as our age, gender, phone, location and so on. But some apps are exposed to such high density and wide range of information reading behavior, which is still deeply disturbing.
These small peeping actions of the mobile app are all due to interest considerations: obtaining more specific user information to achieve precise marketing, thereby increasing data traffic such as "daily active users", and thereby attracting more financing and more revenue.
The author once browsed several beauty products in a shopping app, and as a result received the advertisement push of similar products on the social app the next day. While I was surprised, I was also deeply vigilant: if such personalized shopping behavior would be given a "gaze" from business, then what is not a secret in our lives?
Technology has no tendency to stand, but the application of technology must be ethical. All mobile apps should better serve our daily lives, rather than become a tool for capital hunting. Under the logic of capital operation, the profit-seeking properties of mobile apps are difficult to change, and we can hardly expect them to consciously protect the interests of users. And in daily life, mobile phone apps are often used as a tool rather than a living person, and the effect from moral pressure can be very small. In this regard, we must implement a more specific and clear way to monitor the “peeping” issue of mobile apps.
First of all, developers of mobile apps must be clear about their own activity boundaries. In the era of big data, the value of user information is becoming more and more important. How to obtain, store and use this information is a problem that developers must consider. This is not only related to the commercial value of the App itself, but also to the trust and privacy of users. An analysis by the National Internet Emergency Monitoring Center found that, of the more than 1,000 mobile apps that are currently being downloaded, each application applies for an average of 25 permissions, of which the number of apps that have permission not related to their business accounts for more than 30%. Behind this number are the ulterior motives of these App developers and an important breakthrough in strengthening relevant supervision.
Ideally, developers of mobile phone apps must apply for access rights within their own business scope, and strictly follow the user's use agreement to obtain user consent. In accordance with the principle of "who collects, who is responsible", relevant user information must be properly kept, and any secondary use and sharing with other apps must also be carried out within the scope of user consent.
Secondly, the mobile application platform should assume the responsibility of review and supervision. In addition to the development of unified development standards, prior review and detection are also required. If there is malicious behavior of overreaching user privacy and collecting user data, serious handling must be done.
Finally, industry regulation is an indispensable part. At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has issued a series of related standards, including mobile Internet application store security protection requirements, mobile terminal open platform and application security framework, mobile Internet malicious program description format, etc. However, these standards are currently only recommended reference standards and are not mandatory. To achieve an orderly development of the mobile phone application industry, it is necessary to establish uniform and mandatory industry regulatory standards, and to incorporate all the actions of mobile phone application platforms and mobile phone app developers into the regulatory framework, so that the development of the entire industry has a law to follow.
The mobile phone in my hand has become a hidden danger of privacy disclosure, which is a shocking alarm for us. Only through concerted efforts can all parties prevent these apps from arbitrarily disturbing our mobile phones.
Chang Fei Source: China Youth Daily