As our use of mobile apps has become more common and many of us spend more time using these apps, the question of what these app permissions are and what they’re actually used for - especially now it seems more and more that many are trying to sneak in permissions that aren’t actually needed, and this can definitely be a bad thing as data is becoming more valuable than ever before.
Mobile gaming is amongst the fastest growing markets, not just within smartphones but in general as the demographic for those playing mobile games is quickly changing - no longer is the market cornered by young teen males, but now more and more middle aged women with disposable incomes have become the demographic, and with this the misunderstanding of what permissions are for. Casinos are up there amongst the most popular apps, many of the operators of these casinos are non uk and will typically behave with consumer interest at mind, but there are those that get through - asking for permissions to view contacts may be permissible as a way to allow for social interaction and such, but ma3ny move past that - asking for access to edit your files, to edit contacts, and to do a whole host of other things. And there lies the rub, many users, especially those inexperienced on their smartphones may just click yes and accept the changes without really understanding what is they’re accepting - if you’ve ever got a text or an email from an app provider whilst never having heard of them before, now you know why.
There have already been a large number of reports that even after denying permissions or only accepting what seems like limited permissions that some apps will continue to collect your data, and in some if not many cases it is very difficult to prevent - there are some services that aim to help, however, as efforts are being made to provide ways to completely block permissions and background services from running whilst the app is both running and asleep as well as others that hope to help raise awareness amongst those who are inexperienced gain an understand of what these permissions actually mean. It has become a growing concern in recent years as the number of apps available continue to swell, and oftentimes without any regulation to protect users and to prevent data from being stolen.
With the growing understand of what permissions are for and how they’re being abused, also comes the increasing need for users to pay more attention to what they’re accepting, but as the demographic changes to those users who are less understanding of the devices they’re using, the likelihood of app permission abuse will continue - for others it’s important to urge reading what you’re agreeing to and understand what the app permissions mean, whilst many may be useful there are also others which serve no purpose - and if ever in doubt, choose the safer route of not installing that particular app.
