Google removes apps that secretly collect user data

Google removed more than a dozen apps from its Play Store after realizing that these apps contain malicious code that collects data about users, such as their whereabouts, phone numbers and email addresses. Among the deleted applications: an application for scanning QR codes, an application for meteorology and applications for Islamic prayers. Some of these apps have been downloaded over ten million times. A Google spokesperson told the BBC: "All apps available on the Google Play Store must comply with our policies, regardless of the developers of those apps." "When we detect a violation of these policies, we take appropriate action," the spokesperson added. Google has previously warned app developers that they need to be clear with users about what information is being exchanged. In December 2021, Google announced that apps that did not comply with the company's user data policy would be banned from its Play Store. Skip the podcast and read on podcast My girlfriend (Morahakaty) My girlfriend (Morahakaty) Teenage Taboos, presented by Karima Kouh and prepared by Mais Baqy. Episodes end of podcast This came after British company Huq, which collects user location data, admitted to the BBC that at least two apps did not ask for the correct password before using them. According to the two researchers who discovered the problem, apps contain malicious code (a software development tool) which in turn sends user information to a third party. The two researchers - Joel Reardon of the University of Calgary in Canada, and Sergey Eagleman of the University of California, USA - have published a report on the problem. The QR code reader has been downloaded more than five million times, the kind of app you use once or twice before you forget it. The app had secretly sent sensitive data about its users, including international cell phone identification numbers, to a Panama company called Measurement Systems, before returning that data to a company in the US state of Virginia called Vostrum Holdings. And the American Wall Street Journal published a report on the existence of a link between this company and the US government through another company called Bucket Forensics. Apps blocked for collecting user data can send a request to return to the Google Play Store provided the malicious code is eliminated, according to a Google spokesperson.