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User Expresses Privacy Concerns After Software Update Replaces Default Phone App (martinruenz.de)
An anonymous reader writes: Since I am not living in my home country, I frequently use two different SIM cards and prefer having a phone with dual-sim support. This limits your choice significantly when buying a new device and last time I bought one, I opted for the Wileyfox Swift. It was cheap, had most features I desired and shipped with CyanogenMod (Android) -- which, I thought, might indicate that Wileyfox delivers a slim, privacy-aware system. Yesterday, I was delighted to see that Wileyfox provides an update to a new version of Android (7.1.1) and I didn't hesitate long to install the upgrade. Concerns that the hardware might not hold-up to the new system showed to be unfounded and everything seemed to work just fine. But when I realised that the dialler now labelled itself as 'truecaller' -- something I had never heard of, shoot, I didn't even know the dialler is an app -- it gave rise to a bad suspicion: Is some of my phone's core functionality now provided by a 3rd-party app? Indeed. Does it respect my privacy? No. Can I uninstall it again? No. Was I ever asked to comply with their terms and conditions? Of course not. On top of this, Truecaller doesn't seem to have a clean background. Here's how an Indian daily (Truecaller seems to be popular in emerging regions) described the app: Truecaller is a popular app that shows you contact details of unknown numbers calling you. It crowdsources contact details from all its users' address books. So even if you've never used the service, your name and number could be on Truecaller's database, thanks to someone else who's saved your contact details and allowed the app to access them.
So even if you've never used the service, your name and number could be on Truecaller's database, thanks to someone else who's saved your contact details and allowed the app to access them.
It's not about only Truecaller. Even if you own a dumb phone, your friends have at least one instant messenger (WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Viber, LINE, Telegram, Skype, etc. etc. etc.) installed which knows your name, and in certain cases your home address and other data (your friends might have added your personal data to their address book).
If you want to remain private in this world, you cannot own a phone number at all.
This app has access to:
In-app purchases
Identity
- find accounts on the device
- add or remove accounts
- read your own contact card
Calendar
- read calendar events plus confidential information
Contacts
- find accounts on the device
- read your contacts
- modify your contacts
Location
- approximate location (network-based)
- precise location (GPS and network-based)
SMS
- read your text messages (SMS or MMS)
- receive text messages (MMS)
- receive text messages (SMS)
- send SMS messages
- edit your text messages (SMS or MMS)
Phone
- directly call phone numbers
- directly call any phone numbers
- modify phone state
- reroute outgoing calls
- read call log
- read phone status and identity
- write call log
- add voicemail
Photos/Media/Files
- read the contents of your USB storage
- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Storage
- read the contents of your USB storage
- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage
Microphone
- record audio
Wi-Fi connection information
- view Wi-Fi connections
Device ID & call information
- read phone status and identity
Other
- use any media decoder for playback
- bind to a notification listener service
- download files without notification
- MMS Wakeup
- read voicemail
- write voicemails
- receive data from Internet
- view network connections
- create accounts and set passwords
- change network connectivity
- disable your screen lock
- full network access
- change your audio settings
- control Near Field Communication
- run at startup
- draw over other apps
- use accounts on the device
- control vibration
- prevent device from sleeping
- modify system settings
- install shortcuts
- uninstall shortcuts