Apps used as alternatives to prison in US found to have privacy flaws


An evaluation of 16 apps used as options to incarceration discovered quite a few privateness issues together with in an app used to trace nearly 248,000 immigrants

Know-how



3 September 2022

Close up hand use mobile app to control light in house.

Some monitoring apps are used instead of incarceration

Getty Pictures/Second R/panithan pholpanichrassamee

An evaluation of monitoring apps put in on individuals’s smartphones within the US as a substitute for incarceration discovered quite a few privateness flaws. As an example, an app used to trace 1 / 4 of 1,000,000 individuals with pending immigration instances required “harmful permissions” with out mentioning it in its privateness coverage.

Kentrell Owens on the College of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues analysed 16 Android smartphone apps utilized by federal and state authorities to trace individuals awaiting immigration court docket dates, younger individuals …