Android accessing personal data in phones, Hong Kong's privacy watchdog warns
Privacy watchdog finds older versions of Google's smartphone operating system access all of users' photos and downloaded files
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 16 December, 2014, 4:03am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 16 December, 2014, 9:39am
Phila Siu [email protected]
Android allows smartphone applications to access users' personal data. Photo: AFP
Google's Android operating system allows smartphone applications to access users' personal data such as photos and files without notifying them, the privacy watchdog has found.
In another part of its report released yesterday, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data also said apps developed by local companies generally lagged behind international averages with regards to privacy transparency.
"Smartphone users need to be careful and find out what personal data the applications collect," Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang said.
The watchdog said that for smartphones with Android 4.3, or older operation systems, some apps could access the data stored inside "shared memory" without notifying the users. Shared memory contains all photos taken and files downloaded.
Dr Henry Chang, the office's information technology adviser, said the issue had been fixed in Google's latest 4.4 system.
But he pointed out that 66 per cent of Android users worldwide were still using the 4.3 system or older. He said that some older smartphones were not technologically advanced enough to be upgraded to the 4.4 system.
"There is no way to take enforcement actions on Google because its server is not in Hong Kong … there is nothing Hong Kong can do," Chiang said.
But he said he would liaise with his office's US counterpart, the Federal Trade Commission, to see if the commission would take enforcement action.
Google replied yesterday that the company regularly provided Android operating system updates to improve the user experience and Android security.
"One of the improvements we made in Android 4.4 was to provide enhanced notification about access by applications to data on shared storage. We encourage users to update to a newer version of Android to benefit from this (and many more) improvements," it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the watchdog looked into 60 apps developed by local companies and found that 72 per cent either did not have statements telling users the purpose of data collected, or those statements were unclear.
That's compared with an average of 59 per cent internationally, according to data from privacy watchdogs from 25 other countries including Canada.
The watchdog also said 85 per cent of the 60 apps asked for more personal data than needed, compared with 31 per cent internationally.
Francis Fong Po-kiu, an IT expert and chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Interactive Marketing, said local app developers were mostly small companies that were not familiar with the privacy law.
"We have suggested to the privacy commissioner to see if a template of privacy statement can be provided to the developers," he said.
