By Colm Gorey
A study has flagged potential privacy concerns for contact-tracing-app users on Android, but is it a new concern?. By international standards, the Covid Tracker Ireland app – with more than 1.3m downloads and a model that could go global thanks to the Linux Foundation – can be considered a great success. The app, developed by Waterford-based Nearform, was built on the decentralised Google/Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) API put forward as the most secure option when it comes to data privacy.
By Jon Porter
Data has been used to monitor usage on Gmail’s competitors, sources claim. An internal program at Google known as “Android Lockbox” can give the company’s employees access to information about how Android users interact with popular, non-Google apps and services, according to a new report in The Information. The program, which works via Google Mobile Services, means that employees can reportedly see “sensitive” data about other apps, including how often they’re opened and for how long they’re used.
