Security News > 2020 > January > What Orwell's '1984' Missed: Free Social Media Apps

Give us free instant messaging for our smartphones, and faster than you can say "Viral kitten video," we're collectively part of a mass surveillance nightmare.

Or just give in and download the popular - and free - ToTok social messaging app.

Last month, The New York Times reported that U.S. intelligence officials believe ToTok is really a nation-state surveillance operation being run by the government of the United Arab Emirates that's used "To try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones."

Features built into smartphones and potentially granted to apps - including persistent, background access to a device's microphone, contacts, photos, camera and location - make great potential surveillance fodder.

"Our analysis showed that ToTok simply does what it claims to do and really nothing more," Wardle writes in his technical teardown of the iOS version of ToTok.

News URL

https://www.inforisktoday.com/blogs/what-orwells-1984-missed-free-social-media-apps-p-2847