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Wednesday, 22 June 2016
The need for privacy policies in mobile apps
It is an easy task for the app developer to
create a new mobile application during this technology advanced era but is that
every apps safe for the user’s privacy? It is important for app developers to
know the imperative laws before create an app because it concern to user’s
privacy. When the user’s personal information had used by the third parties it
can be a serious issue and illegal problem for the app developers and can be
sued by the user. So the app developer must set the privacy policy into their
apps which informs user about the precise purpose, who will have the data,
categories of personal data the app wants to collect and the user’s rights. (Iubenda, n.d)
By: Low Joong Lok
Application Privacy
Mobile
application became a trend for online business to connect with their customers
and promote their products. Although it brings benefit to the business and
customer but it also create a privacy issue. Some of the business shares the
customer’s information to the third parties without customer permission and
this action against the company privacy policies. Therefore, the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC) which the independent agency of the United States government
proposing significant improvements in the way businesses handle consumer
information and changes in the controls consumers should have over their
information. The business must follow the 3 top-level maxims: Privacy by
design, Simplifying consumer choice and Increasing consumer transparency. So
the customer’s information will be more safety after the business has a rigorous
policy. (AppPrivacy, n.d)
By: Low Joong Lok
Domestic Abuse goes Digital
Some companies make use of mobile application to gain profit
even if it involves immoral behavior from the users. In the article, domestic
abusers are able to track down their spouses and spy on their daily activities.
This endangers the victims’ lives because every move made is being monitored by
their abuser. The victims will not be able to ask for help and be confined by
their abusers. The law enforcement were able to stop this particular
application. However, this application is just 1 out of 100Billion according to
the statistics(The Statistics Portal, 2015). The companies should not earn profit by making other
people’s lives suffer.
References:
The Statistics Portal. (2015). Statistics and facts about mobile app usage. [online] Available at: http://www.statista.com/topics/1002/mobile-app-usage/ [Accessed 17 Jun. 2016].
By: Low Joong Lok
Tuesday, 21 June 2016
Watch out: Cell phones can be addictive
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Teenagers nowadays are addicted to mobile application as
there are many interesting apps to be explored. This had results in dominated teenager’s
daily life activity by interrupting their sleep, work and study. Certain people
use smartphones to lift their moods. For such people, losing a phone or having
its battery die could cause anxiety or panic. To ensure mobile app do not
become an addiction, Parents can enforce a house rule that allows access cell
phone only during certain times of the day. (Family Bootcamp, 2016)
App makers: It’s time to stop exploiting user addiction and get ethical
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In today world of new technology advancement, mobile device
users increase dramatically. Developers build mobile app and create users
addiction intentionally in order to create more profit. This had raise the number of “Mobile Addict “as certain apps
especially social apps give us hits of dopamine. Excessive used of these app
will exhibit brain damage and cause users to mental, physical, and social harm. Developers should be ethical and protect user’s mental
health and well-being by notifying users who uses app excessively with usage
report to create self-awareness. Additionally, they can include self-regulation
tools which limit user’s time in accessing mobile applications.
Smartphone Addiction: Managing your phone usage time
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Smartphone addiction is a serious issue since the wide use
of mobile application. According to study, 70% of people will check their phone
within the moment they wake up everyday. This is a bad habit as it leads to lack of communication
with family and friends when users just focus on checking their phone every 15
minutes even in the workplace. There are 3 ways to learn how to manage your smartphone such
as be conscious of what feelings that make you want to check your phone and try
to find other way to divide your attention, be strong when the phone rings, try
to avoid this temptation by putting silent and be disciplined .
The Predictive Power Of Location
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Nowadays, marketer used location as their strategic
marketing tools to track on consumer needs from the company websites and mobile
application consumer used. It became a powerful source of information about a
customer’s position that can be used by marketers to deliver relevant messaging
in innovative ways. It became an opportunity for marketers to shape consumer
behavior and significantly drive sales. As a results, consumer’s privacy information was divulged. Consumers’ evaluations of online shopping
experiences and repurchase intention were influenced when exposed to
information about behavioral tracking practices. To prevent misuse of personal information, government should
raise consumer awareness about the risk of mobile app by holding a number of
workshops for the consumer groups to explore guidelines to protect consumers'
privacy online. Additionally, companies who used aggressive tactics have to be
punish according to the law. (Federal Trade Commission, 2016)
Reference: Federal Trade Commission. (2016). Advertising and Marketing on the Internet: Rules of the Road. [online] Available at: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/advertising-marketing-internet-rules-road [Accessed 18 Jun. 2016].
Copyright law and mobile apps: How can I protect my intellectual property?
There are different types of
mobile apps and some of the apps may be worth millions even billions. Therefore,
copyright is important for those who created the apps to protect their
intellectual property. Based on The Copyright Act 1968, it is able for mobile
apps to be copyrighted. There are some basic requirements to make sure that
mobile apps are protected by copyright. Firstly, the mobile app must be the
result of a person’s own skill and effort. Besides, the app must be novel or original. It is important for the app
to demonstrate some utility and function that makes it novel or original. There
is no requirement that the app must be purchasable product to be pay for
copyright protection because free mobile apps may still be protected if they
meet all of the conditions.
Read more: Click Here
By: Yvonne Tan
10 ingredients that concoct a subconsciously addictive mobile app
Nowadays, people are
addicted to different categories of mobile apps. One of the reasons why people
will addict to mobile apps is because of “KISS”, the simplicity rules that
stand for “Keep it simple, stupid”. When it comes to designing mobile apps, the
app inventors have to keep their apps simple so that people will get used to it
easily and become addicted. For example is the popular dating app, Tinder. All
users only need to swipe left and right according to their interest in the date
offered to them by the apps. Besides, mobile apps that are convenient for users
will also be addicted too. This is because users can do multitasking at the
same time when they are using the mobile apps. For example like playing games
with one hand while doing something else.
Read more: Click here
By: Yvonne Tan
Crooks misusing police mobile apps
Mobile phone applications are convenient tools for
people to complete different tasks. Besides, it’s easy to install and use when
you have a smartphone. In India, the police of Tumakuru had launched a mobile
app to the public so people can use this app to report incidents online and get responses immediately. Although it brings benefit to the public but still have some
criminal use the police app to hack people’s bank account by entering their
phone number in the police app make a false report and get the victim duplicate
SIM so the victim would not receive any alert message of money transaction.
Therefore the victim money was transferred to the criminal account without and
notice. There are some people misuse the mobile apps for crime action when it’s
convenient to all users. To solve this issue the police department must discuss
with the technical team to improve the app secure. (Gowhar, 2016)
By: Ivan Tang
How safe are your mobile banking apps?
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People are relying more on using banking apps to do transaction and it is
a chance for the fraudster to steal bank customer’s money through banking apps.
Fraudster also creates a fake banking apps to steal personal details and use
the phone number to access victim financial information. The malware which
create by the fraudster will attack the victim banking apps to get personal
details and misuse it. To prevent becoming a victim people must download the
banking apps from the official channel and be aware of the message send by SMS
which ask for bank account number. In addition, the banker can put in six or 4
digit authentication PIN for every customer and auto block the customer who not
use the apps for a specific time. It’s a way to protect customer’s privacy. (vishwanathan, 2016)
Read more here: Click here
By: Ivan Tang
Oovoo: Parents claim paedophiles are using smartphone app to target children
Misuse on social media apps also can impact a child's
life when the criminal use those apps to allure children and became a
harassment issue. Some paedophilia will use the apps to send sexual messages to
the children and mislead them. Besides, children use those social media apps to
meet strangers and get cheated by them. To prevent this issue parents must filter
out inappropriate websites and ensure their child is enough age to join the
social networking site. Parents also need to educate their children not to
communicate with strangers by using the social media apps and teach them to use
the safety function of the apps block the strangers so they can reduce the
harassment issues. (GLENDINNING, 2016)
British mobile phone users’ movements 'could be sold for profit’
Cybercrime use the hacker apps to hack public
information and sell it for profit also an issue of misuse mobile apps. The
cybercrime also use those information to blackmail people. Some of the mobile
apps have location tracking function to provide the user details so the
criminal will create the societal problem for instance kidnapping, swindle case
and others. The solution of this issue are people close their location tracking
function apps and not using the public WIFI to download any apps or register something
that use personal details. Besides, mobile company should make contracts
available before the point of sale and marketing to let people know what data
had been collected and who will be shared with it so the violate personal
privacy issues will be lessen. (Gayle, 2016)
Mobile Addiction
Read more here: click here
By: Chow Suet Li
Privacy Issue
A research from University of California concluded that among 825 mobile applications for iPhone users, 21% forward the ID number, 4% forward the current position and 0.5% copy the address books. As for android users, installing apps requires the permission to access right to data (contacts, photos, location) and will be claimed by the app, or else the app will not be installed. Once installed, the privileges cannot be revoked. Many developers claimed that they do so because they want to ensure the functionality of the app runs smoothly. To solve the issue of data abuse, an app called “SRT AppGuard” is created to show the users on every application they installed and what it accesses to. Privileges can be taken back or given to the respective app at any time by the users. What comes even great is it can be downloaded without any fees charges.
Mobile Spying
Mobile
spying applications are designed for the purpose of child and employee
monitoring, but sometimes the purpose extend beyond that. After buying the
application, a link is given to be downloaded in the target phone or tablet.
When it finishes downloading, the app disappears and works in complete stealth
mode without leaving trace behind (Souza, 2016). The user then need to sign into online user
account with username and password given by the company. The list of activities that can be monitored are in the article. It could be a law offense if one install monitoring software onto
phone which he/she do not own or have proper authorization to install it. A
person (over 18 years old) who is being monitored need to be notified or else
the user is consider violated the laws. It may be legal for parents to monitor
their children through spy app, but ethically it is wrong to monitor them
without their consent. One way to eliminate this option is to open a honest,
friendly and fair conversation with their children. As for organisation, it can
win employee’s hearts if trust is given to them. When their conscience is in
charge, it may increase the engagement in productivity.
Misuse Of Mobile App Configurations
A Gartner analyst foresee that misconfiguration of mobile applications could produce 75% of mobile security breaches by next year. Instead of technical attacks on mobile devices, data are leaked when the organization are not aware of the misuse of personal cloud services. The cloud service apps in mobiles devices and tablets which used to convey enterprise data may lead to data breaches. Confidential data could be stolen, viewed and used by unknown authority.
Federal Legislation Introduced Regarding Mobile Application Privacy
In order to promote transparency and protect the mobile application
user’s privacy, The Apps Act had introduced by Georgia Congressman Hank Johnson.
The Apps Act are mean for the app developers to provide notice to the apps
users when sharing their personal data before collecting the personal data. The
notice must include the purpose of collecting and whom is the third party that
will receives. App developers need to take responsibility to prevent
unauthorized access to the apps user’s personal data and inform the users when
they want to stop the mobile apps by deleting their stored personal data (Orzechowski,
2013).
Read more here:
http://www.whitecase.com/publications/article/federal-legislation-introduced-regarding-mobile-application-privacy
By: Edward See Noor Yee
By: Edward See Noor Yee
4 Legal Considerations for Building a Mobile App
Legal considerations when developing a mobile application is
important to protect the mobile applications from involving in complaints,
negative media coverage and lawsuits. Four ways that prevent negative issues to
happen are don’t hide the money factor if your application has a charge
associated with it, evaluate the data drilling by clearly identify what user
data your app is collecting and legalese is bad because lengthy boilerplate
terms make the users difficult to understand and ignore it. Therefore, be user
friendly way (Hutnik, 2011).
Read more here:
http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/mobile-app-legal-tips/#7ksAl_zLHEq5
By: Edward See Noor Yee
Application misuse is proving hard for IT to spot
Business users are misusing the applications, but IT
department finds it difficult to stop them. Users abuse applications for
negligent or malicious purposes such as stealing data for sale to other competitors
in the market. Besides, users can misuse software in various ways such as view,
copy, or print data. Only one in four said they could stop employees copying
files. 71% of malicious are caused by neglicience. In site of this, more
companies are planning to move their applications to the cloud or break down
the users into privileged users and ‘application users’. Only these two users
can access to the cloud to prevent leakage of information (Bradburry, 2016).
Read more here:
http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/application-misuse-is-proving-hard-for-it-to-spot/375582
By: Edward See Noor Yee
Misuse of Location Data
The advanced mobile applications able to detect the users
current location based using a combination of GPS coordinates with the ID of
the nearest mobile tower, called as location data. This may acts as a useful
way for users to find way out when they are missing, but this could lead to the
invasion of privacy some app providers and developers sell their users'
location data to marketing companies for targeted advertising. Several UK
regulations are used to protect the users and allow users to setting off their
location to hide them in the crowd and protect their privacy (Misuse of
Location Data | Taylor Wessing LLP, 2016).
By: Edward See
How to get an App Store refund for kids' accidental in-app purchases
In app-purchases have become a thorny issues for customers in Apple’s ecosystem. According to the United States Federal Trade Commission, in-app purchases are made without the knowledge of their parents. Hence, Apple made it easier for the users to recoup the money without any paper works and forms. The users only need to find the receipts from email or iTunes and submit a refund request. To avoid this to happen again, Apple had created few options to make it harder for kids to accidentally make in-app purchases such as it requires password to access (Moren, 2016).
Read more here: http://www.macworld.com/article/2140066/how-to-get-an-app-store-refund-for-kids-accidental-in-app-purchases.html
By: Lau Jing Qi
Internet: Thin line between use and misuse
There is a thin line between use and misuse mobile application as parents often gift their children with communication gadgets to assuage their guilt of spending less time with their children, but they would not understand that this will lead to the misuse of mobile application by their children as they lack of guidance when access through it such as pornography and scam. To create awareness, schools had organized workshops for children and parents regarding the basic precautions. The only solutions for parents to prevent this, they need to explain things from young age and dissuade them from watching objectionable content. Parents should be role model to their child (Nair, 2016).
Read more here: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/Internet-Thin-line-between-use-and-misuse/articleshow/50591784.cms
By: Lau Jing Qi
Social and Mobile Apps Push Back Against FBI Pressure on Encryption
This article mentioned about the escalation between FBI an Apple over the tech grant’s refusal to unlock a terrorist’s Iphone. FBI has been trying to pressure Iphone but Iphone refuse to implement this because it is not safe as when FBI could use the techniques that emulate the generated security keys but others can do the same thing to FBI too. The consequences are hackers can easily hack into anyone mobile application and violate the user’s privacy. Although there are laws to prevent the FBI to hack into the systems, but law may shifts in the future, hence, more advanced technology is needed to block the FBI from hacking (Morrison, 2016).
5 Epic Ways We Misuse Mobile Technology
The five ways of misuse mobile technology are politicians
watch explicit materials in parliament,
people see people’s head and outstretch
Ipads during concerts, children misuse the in-app purchase, undated social news
and constantly sharing selfies (Lim, 2016). The consequences are bad impact on
studies, the students become additive to mobile phones which lead to poor
grades. Accidents also occur as drivers play phone while driving and will cause
serious health issues (Point, 2015). To solve this, parents should limit the
types of apps, parents should educate their children the proper way to use the
mobile apps (Life, 2012).
References
Life, T. (2012) How to Prevent your Teen From Misusing Their
Cell Phone - This Busy Life, This Busy Life. Available at: http://www.thisbusylife.com/2012/11/12/how-to-prevent-your-teen-from-misusing-their-cell-phone/(Accessed: 18 June 2016).
Point, M. (2015) Positive and negative impact of cell phones, My Essay Point. Available at: http://myessaypoint.com/positive-and-negative-impact-of-cell-phones (Accessed: 18 June 2016).
Monday, 20 June 2016
‘Stalker apps’ and GPS allow domestic violence abusers to discover hidden refuges.
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Refuges that house victim of domestic violence are increasingly being discovered by perpetrators using “stalker apps” and GPS locators hidden in their victim’s phone, cars and others. Through these apps and GPS locators the prey know exactly the locations of their victims. These victims live in fear as there are nowhere to escape from their abusers. The stalking technology cannot be stopped because something as simple as public transport card can locate the users. Hence, the Australian Prime Minister has declared the misuse of technology in domestic violence an issue and promised a national plan. The workers in domestic violence sectors believed education and awareness is the only solutions.
Read more here: Click here
Posted By: Vivien Ngai
Kid Racks up almost $6,000 on Jurassic World in-app purchases
Nowadays, there are many
mobile apps that use in-app purchases. According to news, a 7-year-old boy had
nearly spent almost $6,000 in in-app purchases bills, including $2,000 spent in
just one hour. He claimed to not be aware that he was spending real money for
upgrading dinosaurs on the mobile apps games, Jurassic World. As a consequence
of that, his father had run into credit cards problems after got the credit
cards bills from the bank. To make sure that kids will not use real money to
make in-apps purchase unintentionally, parents should monitor their kids while
they are playing mobile apps games. Besides, there should be added a tutorial
on setting up parental controls inside the App Store to improve this problem.
Read more : Click Here
By: Yvonne Tan
Rape by mobile messaging
A growing number of underage Malaysian girls are being lured
by sexual predators through mobile chat apps and then sexually assaulted. These
victims usually going through puberty and experiencing problems which they find
it impossible to share with their parents so they turned to strangers to get
some comfort. These predators will take advantage of the trust of the victims
and lure them out to sexually abuse them. Hence, education is important to stop
these sexual crimes on social issues, family should start building open
communication with their child and educate them on sex.
How to prevent your teen from misusing their cell phone?
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Parents allow their teenager to use cell phone so they can
reach them at any time but teenagers often make poor choices when they can use
cell phone freely. Parents can use these signs to prevent teenagers to
misuse cell phone such as excessive usage, secretive, make calls behind closed door
and late night phone calls are some of the warning signs of misusing cell
phone. Hence, parents should set ground rules and discuss the appropriate usage
with teenagers. Parents should monitor the phone usage at all time with the
help of certain mobile applications to enable parents to monitor the child cell
phone usage with a simple touch of a button.
Sexual Predator Warns Parents About ‘KIK’ App
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‘KIK’ is messaging app that enable a person to contact and chat with random people they prefer based on the criteria they set in the application. A convicted sex offender shares how he easily prey on victim. Through this mobile application function he is able to be anyone he want easily by changing his personal profile and select the age range of those he want to contact, within minutes he is matched with 2 people. The convicted sex offender said he tried to stay away from these easy tools “mobile applications” to prey. Hence, it is safer for parents to make sure their kids do not download these mobile applications such as ‘KIK’.
The young generation are 'addicted' to mobile phones
These days, young people are
so addicted to their mobile phones. A study found that, without their mobile
phones, they will feel like they have lost a limb. There is a finding by the
University of Maryland shows the growing of younger generation depends on the technology
and how it become important to them. Many young people have reported to have
the symptoms of distress, depression, dependency and addiction when they try to
go unplugged the whole day. To improve the problems, there was a “The World
Unplugged project” for people to challenge 24 hours without any media. However,
more than 50 per cent of them failed this challenge because they feel
uncomfortable without their devices.
Read more here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8458786/The-young-generation-are-addicted-to-mobile-phones.html
By: Yvonne Tan
Cyber Restriction: When Your Teen Abuses Their Digital Privileges
Teens
nowadays abuse their privileges disregarding the rules and boundaries because
of convenience. There are websites to protect the families’ privacy. Different
people have different opinions on digital abuse. According to Scheff (2014),
there are different ways for a person to abuse their digital privileges. The
actions of children may hurt others even though they think nothing of it.
Parents should try to understand the way their children are acting and not take
extreme actions. Parents should also have more face-to-face contact with their
child to teach them the consequences of misusing the digital applications.
Read more here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sue-scheff/cyber-restriction-when-your-teen-abuses-their-digital-privileges_b_5339348.html
By: Junne Low
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