Android app developer slammed by FTC for deceitful data gathering

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has rebuked an Android app developer for collecting and sharing information on users’ locations and device ID data, regardless of whether they had given their consent or not.
The incident underlines the risks posed by Android from a security point of view as apps are not vetted before they're made available on the Google Play store and can be used by their creators to spread malware or for other harmful means.

GoldenShores Technologies, makers of the Brightest Flashlight app, which the FTC said has been downloaded “millions of times”, were found to have passed on the data they gathered to third-party advertising networks.

Users were presented with an option about whether to share information but this had no effect whatsoever. Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, criticised the owner of the app Erik Geidl for playing fast and loose with users' privacy.

“When consumers are given a real, informed choice, they can decide for themselves whether the benefit of a service is worth the information they must share to use it,” she said. “But this flashlight app left them in the dark about how their information was going to be used.”

As a result of the undertaking signed by the firm to settle the case with the FTC it has agreed to stop "misrepresenting how consumers’ information is collected and shared and how much control consumers have over the way their information is used".

The settlement also requires the defendants to provide a disclosure that fully informs consumers "when, how and why their geolocation information is being collected, used and shared" and explicit permission for data collection must be secured as well.