| Title | Popular Selfie App Sending User Data to China, Researchers Say | |
| Date | Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:57PM | |
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| from the better-or-worse-than-facebook? dept. | ||
Meitu, a Chinese selfie editing app, has amassed billions in downloads since launching in 2008; it's been trendy in Asia for several years, and just recently began gaining popularity in the United States. The anime-style photo-editing tool, which is available through the Apple and Android app stores, features airbrushed, fairylike depictions of people.
But there's a serious privacy and security issue with the app, according to mobile security researchers who performed tests running the application, primarily on Android phones. The code instructs users' phones to send a large amount of data back to China, and possibly around the world.
That information that[sic] could potentially be used to spy on users and their communications.
Some of the application's permissions, presented before users download the app, include access to the calendar, camera, geolocation data, contacts, screen resolution, photos, the contents of the phone's USB storage, and other data.
The application also appears to be collecting the unique ID, the IMEI number, of users' phones, according to Greg Linares, a security researcher who examined the application. The IMEI is a 15-digit long serial number that can pinpoint the phone's country of origin and individual model.
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printed from SoylentNews, Popular Selfie App Sending User Data to China, Researchers Say on 2026-03-15 08:22:48