iPhone Police Scanner app spies on users

[footage]

Police Scanner, an application for the iPhone, uses analytic software from Pinch Media that tracks personal information and sends it to various parties without your consent.

According to ReadWrite Web, the information that's gathered and linked is:

[begin quote]

* iPhone's unique ID
* iPhone Model
* OS Version
* Application version (in this case, camera zoom 1.x)
* If the application is cracked/pirated
* If your iPhone is jailbroken
* Time & date you start the application
* Time & date you close the application
* Your current latitude & longitude
* Your gender (if Facebook enabled)
* Your birth month (if Facebook enabled)
* Your birth year (if Facebook enabled)

What's worse is that you're often never told that the app will be performing this level of detailed tracking and you're often never given the opportunity to opt-out. The data recorded is continuously tracked every time you use the application. This violation of user privacy is so egregious that the developer even goes so far as to call Pinch Media "iPhone spyware."

[end quote]

The ReadWriteWeb story, linked from The New York Times, is here:

Dear iPhone Users - Your Apps Are Spying on You - NYTimes.com

The list of apps that use Pinch Media analytics is here:

TextBin - Store your text online!

Here is what Police Scanner is said to report:

# Police Scanner - pinchmedia enabled, multiple, serious data leaks, sends ID's, pirated/jailbreak info and lat & long to multiple 3rd parties
127.0.0.1 data.ps.juicydevelopment.com
127.0.0.1 data.talkradiofinder.com

[vabiro]

Hi,

Interesting stuff, but I'm not sure what it has to do with the streaming of scanner audio over the Internet.

However on the subject of unauthorised cell phone monitoring:
Researcher: BlackBerry Spyware Wasn’t Ready for Prime Time | Threat Level | Wired.com

This app's source code is now in the wild and is being incorporated into malicious applications.

If you have a Blackberry, it would be wise to run the following occasionally:
BlackBerry - App Remover for removing Etisalat's "Registration" application on BlackBerry smartphones
and
Chirashi Security

Victor

[cpuerror]

No worse then what every single Facebook "app" does.

[vabiro]

Originally Posted by cpuerror

No worse then what every single Facebook "app" does.

No kidding:

[datainmotion]

Resistance is futile

[krazybob]

It may not directly relate to scanning but it does relate to the use of an application used to receive scanners. ANY application that harvests user data without the expressed consent of the user is a problem. It is also a violation of VISA / MasterCard / AMEX privacy policy regulations.

Furthermore, this application does not just use the RR feeds and we have caught them in the act linking to our feeds at our expense. Our attornys are dealing with this company. You see, any company that uses feeds provided by others, especially at the expense of others while charging for the application that does so, has already entered into troubled waters. Now the same application is caught harvesting user data without consent?

This is not an indictment of RR. In fact, I suspect that those that listen for free could care less that the original provider isn't being compensated and will only drive public feeds to password protected feeds.

[juicydevelopment]

Police Scanner and other applications have recently been accused of using ‘spyware’ to track and collect users personal information. Juicy Development does not collect personally-identifiable information in Police Scanner or in any of our other products.

We do use Pinch Media analytics software in some of our applications including Police Scanner. The information that Pinch Media collects is composite data. Much like the data collected by polling and survey companies, this data is presented to us without any sort of identifiers for us to identify any single user.

It is impossible for Juicy Development to extrapolate any information that can be tied to any specific user. For example, through data collected, we understand that there are almost 14,000 users of Police Scanner that are using pirated copies of the software. However, we have no way to identify those individuals who have pirated the software. They are anonymous to us.

The only information that our analysts are able to see is:

· The number of users who have access the application

· The average length of time the application was used.

· The percentage of phones using each operating system.

· The percentage of each model of phone.

· A breakdown by country, state, or major city.

· The percentage of jail broken phones

· The number of stolen “hacked” copies.


The reason why we collect this data is to assist our developers and marketing managers in making product decisions and improving our applications, such as to help us decide when to publish an update and for how long we need to continue support for older operating systems. The data has also helped us identify bugs in our application and what features in our application were most popular. For example, through Pinch Media, we’ve found that 7.5% of sessions run on the software experience a crash. Since we have that information, we can pinpoint the bug that makes the program crash and get the fix to our customers in a timely manner.

Juicy Development has always been committed to respecting the privacy of our users. For more information on how Pinch Media works, please see Pinch Media, user privacy, and ’spyware’ - Pinch Media Blog

The team at Juicy Development

[juicydevelopment]

# Police Scanner - pinchmedia enabled, multiple, serious data leaks, sends ID's, pirated/jailbreak info and lat & long to multiple 3rd parties
127.0.0.1 data.ps.juicydevelopment.com
127.0.0.1 data.talkradiofinder.com

This is not accurate. Both of the above addresses are Juicy Development. No third party ever sees any data from Police Scanner customers. The closest thing is the monthly checks (both donations and partnerships) we send to support some of the stream providers.

Tod Hadley, CEO
Juicy Development

[blantonl]

Tod, thanks for addressing this issue.

Folks, many software packages and Web sites use analytics tools to better understand how users and visitors are using their applications - for the sole purpose to make the sites, applications, and user experience better.

I've worked with Tod and Juicy quite a bit since the ScanAmerica acquisition, and I can assure you that Juicy Development and Tod's team is running a great development team that is focused on delivering a quality application. From what we've seen, Tod's team (and other iPhone app developers) have introducted hundreds of thousands to our hobby.

There are no nefarious actions here... as Tod indicated this is above the board.

Warm regards,

[footage]

Well, you can't trust everything you see on the Net, and if I've relayed incorrect or exaggerated information, I certainly apologize to anyone affected. Since I'm not an iPhone user, I have no direct experience with the application in any case. I did feel it important to pass on information that others might find important.

By the way, no criticism of RR was implied. RR's a great meeting place, and I consider my RR membership one of the greatest bargains around.

Rick