The Privacy Commissioner says she is only a little surprised that security agencies in the United States and Britain are gathering personal data from smartphone apps.
Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff. Photo: SUPPLIED
According to The Guardian newspaper, the National Security Agency in the United States and the GCHQ in Britain are developing capabilities to take advantage of leaky smartphone apps, such as Angry Birds and Google Maps.
The information came from former NSA analyst Edward Snowden, who is now a fugitive in Russia where he has temporary asylum.
Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff says there's no such thing as a free lunch.
She says if people get free or low cost apps, then they need to understand there's a potential for personal information and behavioural patterns to be collected.
Ms Shroff says low-cost apps are financed by selling advertising to an advertising platform, which in turn is, apparently, vulnerable to information collection by intelligence agencies.
