DIGITAL LIFE

End of the great espionage? This app lets you see who collects your data 

Various apps and web sites collect your data: from the location and phone numbers of your friends up to the time you wake up. However, there is a solution to identify digital espionage.
At the time of large-scale data collection, several companies are open about what they are doing with their private information. But it is the user who must protect their privacy.
Still available only on phones with iOS operating system, the Lockdown app, developed by former Apple engineers Johnny Lin and Rahul Dewan, allows you to see data trackers, or trackers, according to Forbes newspaper.
To date, more than 100,000 people have already installed the firewall, which has blocked more than one billion trackers.
Lockdown uses Apple's Virtual Private Network (VPN) to work but, not being a VPN itself, it does not hide your IP address. According to note one of the developers, Lockdown is different from other applications because it does not collect records of the actions of the operating system.
"This means that you can prove our privacy policy, that we do not record or collect any user data except those used to run the service and we have no access to them," explained Rahul Dewan.
Great spying
Data trackers don't just come from apps like Facebook or Google. They are embedded in other apps you use every day, as well as on websites you visit.
"They silently collect data from what you're looking at, your actions – every time you swipe, tap and click a button," says Johnny Lin. And this happens even when the application is disabled.
"After this data is collected, it is sent to advertisers ,data brokers [entities that sell consumer information on the Internet] or analytical companies," says Lin. "By collecting this data on individuals from different sources, these companies build very specific 'shadow' profiles of each individual, " he explains.
These profiles include what you like and don't like, as well as downright scary details like the time you wake up, who you're connected to and in what way, where you live and the places you go, your diet, and even extremely sensitive health data.
"We tell our devices things we wouldn't tell our closest friends and family, so why should data and behaviors about them be available to people and companies we never know?"

Ria Novosti-Russia