PHOTOGRAPH BY REMY ROMAN^ KIPLINGER’S PERSONAL FINANCE^13
INTERVIEW
SOLVING THE APP
PRIVACY PROBLEM
Revelations about FaceApp have rekindled
debate over how to protect your data.
Florian Schaub is an assis-
tant professor in the School
of Information at the Uni-
versity of Michigan.
FaceApp, the viral app that
shows you what you will look
like as you age, has sparked
the most recent debate about
online privacy. Should people
be worried about the data the
app collects? I think what
started to make people look
deeper was that the app’s
developers are Russian
and the app’s privacy policy
made broad claims about
how they might reuse pho-
tos. It could mean they’re
creating some kind of legal
room for themselves to
share information with
other companies and use
it for other purposes. Or
it could simply mean that
they are trying to limit
their liabilities. Still, it
is a red f lag.
How can app privacy policies
be improved? For the longest
time, when downloading
Google’s Android apps,
you would get a permis-
sion screen that you
would have to “Accept”
or you couldn’t down-
load the app. Once you
agreed, the app could
access your photos
and contacts and so
forth. That’s not a
good choice. I think
to help people have
better control of their pri-
vacy, they should be able
to unbundle these deci-
sions [making them spe-
cific to what they’re doing
at a particular moment].
For example, over the past
couple of years, Google and
Apple have switched to
permission dialog
boxes that say
things such as
“This app wants
to access your
location: Allow
or deny.” That
makes it much
easier for people
to say no andstill be able to use the app
in some constrained ways,
instead of making an all-
or-nothing decision. Com-
panies also need to view
privacy policies as more
than just a way to protect
themselves from lawsuits,
and have data protection as
part of the design.Some companies are offering
to pay users who allow them
to track their online activities.
What are the risks? That de-
pends on how detailed the
tracking is and how the data
will be used. It’s already
pretty common to collect
some data from con-
sumers’ online
activities.
But a
browser
extension
or an app
on yourphone that tracks your ac-
tivities could reveal a lot.
For example, let’s say you’re
planning a vacation. The
tracker could tell someone
when your house is likely to
be unoccupied and also give
them a good indication of
your budget, which could
indicate how much money
you make. Or say a company
tracks what you’re watching
on YouTube or the news
articles you read. That com-
pany can then infer your po-
litical leanings, along with
your entertainment prefer-
ences. But a lot of this kind
of tracking is already hap-
pening in some form.With data breaches occurring
more frequently, what else can
consumers do to protect their
privacy, particularly when
downloading apps? When us-
ing a new app, stop to think
how it’s making money and
if you trust the app to use
your data in a way you agree
with. Then change your pri-
vacy settings to opt out of
things. For example, most
services let you opt out of
having your data used for
marketing purposes. And
don’t say yes to every
permission dialog box
that comes up. For ex-
ample, does the app
really need to know
your location? Under-
stand that it’s not just
asking for your loca-
tion at that moment
but that it might be
asking for permission
to track your location
wherever you go. If
you’re using an internet
browser, then an ad
blocker or tracker blocker,
such as Privacy Badger,
is useful. RIVAN STINSON