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| What's Creepy and What's Not
In Your Consumer Tech
Hello,
It's time for *Privacy Not Included's monthly round-up of consumer technology news you can use to shop smart and protect yourself online. Enjoy!
What's Creepy? Grindr Data Outs Priest â Why This Matters To You What happened?
Last month a high ranking Catholic priest in the US was outed without his consent by an online newsletter that reports on the Catholic church. The publication â called The Pillar â used cell phone location data, allegedly obtained from a data broker, to learn about the priest's use of the gay dating app Grindr. This data included "anonymized" location data they were able to de-anonymize by linking cellphone data to the priest's home and work locations and then linking that to the use of Grindr. All of this was done legally, if unethically.
Why this matters to you
Never expect anonymized location data to ever be truly anonymized! We are under digital surveillance now more than ever. This story of the outed priest highlights two big ways we are all at risk.
First, there are no federal laws in the United States that restrict the collection and use of your location data. Supposedly anonymized cell phone location data is collected and sold freely. Yet, this story shows there is really no such thing as truly anonymous location data. Our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation say the US needs comprehensive data privacy regulations to protect us from data brokers collecting and selling our personal information. We agree.
Second, apps like Grindr that collect location data â especially on vulnerable communities like the LGBTQIA+ community â must do more to protect their users' data. Grindr has a well-known track record of not protecting its users' sensitive personal information. As former Mozilla Fellow and privacy expert Matt Mitchell told Motherboard, "Grindr has been, will be, and forever continues to be warned about this. They obviously don't care. The company should have done more from day one. I mean they launched with no business plan, just a cool idea. Seems from then to now, user cybersecurity, safety and privacy comes last."
If you're looking for dating apps to help you find that special someone, some are better than others at protecting your data. Check out our dating app reviews to find the right one for you.
What's (Kinda) Less Creepy? The Good: Google will require all apps in its Play store to have a privacy policy in April of next year. Yay!
The Bad: What?! Why on earth did it take Google so long to require privacy policies for apps in its app store? It's been a requirement for Apple's app store since 2018.
The Ugly: Amazon still doesn't require privacy policies for connected products sold through its website. We called on them to require privacy policies for connected devices back in 2019.
Did they heed our call? Nope. Connected products like this baby monitor are still listed for sale on Amazon with no privacy policy we could find (we emailed the company and asked for it. Crickets). That means there is no way to know how the baby monitor â that has a camera pointed at your baby all night long â handles your personal data. Yikes!
This is a good reminder to check and make sure any connected device or app you use has a privacy policy. Even if you don't read it, just knowing they have it shows the company has made the smallest amount of effort to show how they will handle your personal information.
We want to know what you think! We spend our days here at *Privacy Not Included thinking about how we can help you understand our growing world of technology and privacy.
One thing we're seeing more of every day is artificial intelligence in our smart homes, fitness trackers, dating apps, and more. We want to know how best to help you understand this new AI technology. So we put together a short survey to get your opinion. Just three minutes of your time will help us make *Privacy Not Included even better.
Thank you,
Jen Caltrider
Lead, *Privacy Not Included
Mozilla
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