Dear cool apps: Why are you spying on my phone calls?
So, if I haven't voluntarily given up my privacy rights upon approval of the installation of such software, do these apps (the ones manufacturer supplied, and relatively undeleteable) not violate Canadian law?
I'm not sure! To my way of thinking, they should if they don't. Because the ones that came with the phone are ones that I certainly wasn't warned would be snooping on my phone calls.
The other ones, I installed without looking carefully enough at the permissions, so I guess fair enough, although to be fair to me, I didn't realize that "Read phone state and identity" meant that they could track how often I was on the phone and the phone number of the person I was talking to. But the information was available, had I clicked on that phrase and looked at the pop up for the ones I installed myself.
It took some searching to find that information out about the pre-installed apps, though. It didn't even occur to me that the apps could do that.
Where do you look to see what permissions an installed app has? In other words where would I look to see what apps I missed this with when I installed them?
If you have an Android phone, in your list of all apps, go to one that is called "settings". Open it, and then click on "Apps" from the menu. (I'm not sure if each Android phone is different or not, because I've only ever used my HTC.) Then it will give you a list of apps on your phone. Click on the app you want to check, and then scroll down through the info and you should be able to see the permissions there.
At least, that's how it works on my phone.
And it took me a lot of fiddling and playing with the thing to figure that out, too! :)
Interesting -- even the popular angry birds has this.
Also what is network communications full internet access-- is this the right to use the internet to function or to spy on internet traffic?
Good question. I'm assuming that most apps need to use the internet to function properly, so that one doesn't bother me so much. I have no idea, though, whether that means the app can spy on your internet activity. I always just sort of assume that Google spies on my internet usage.