An interesting little article was published yesterday about all of those robocall-killing apps that collection agencies are being forced to deal with, and how those apps may be invading the privacy of the people who are using them.
A security company looked at the privacy policies of the top “10-15 robocall-blocking apps in Apple’s App Store to see what data is being collected and where it’s being sent.” One of the apps sends the user’s phone number to three different analytics companies, without mentioning that in the privacy policy.
Making matters even worse was the lack of interest and transparency that many of the companies had in addressing the issues raised by the review. Even though Apple requires that every app’s privacy policy have information about how users can revoke consent or request deletion of their data, most of the robocall-blocking apps that were reviewed did not offer this. From the article:
After several attempts to contact these companies I only got one vague response back. They said that the matter will be “looked into.”
What makes this more problematic is that these apps have access to an individual’s phone number, contacts, text messages, and voicemails. Knowing what is being done with that information, and if it is being sent to some other company or organization, could be problematic. Do users know that third parties have access to this information?
Many collection agencies have downloaded these apps and are using them to test their dialing strategies to see how the apps identify/block/report those calls. Industry professionals have said that the apps can provide crucial intelligence into teaching companies about how to navigate the web of call-blocking apps and services.
