Pinkerton Insights Podcast

Late last month, Tech Crunch disclosed an investigation regarding a specialized app distributed by Facebook via third parties and used to collect users’ smartphone activities. Facebook’s Research app was first distributed in 2016 by three beta testing programs: Applause, uTest, and Betabound. Once downloaded, the app has to remain running in the background, and, in return, the user receives $20 US dollar per month in e-cards, and another $20 per every friend referred to the app. The app grants Facebook access to decrypted messages, encrypted messages, Amazon purchase history, web searches, email usage, social networks, all app related information, and games. On March 2018, Facebook used another VPN app named Onavo to gather all the users’ data even though it transgressed Apple Store’s non-data collection policies; the app was later removed from the store. We expect the information gathering methods to continue increasing in the short to medium term as the revenue obtained for the selling and analysis of sensi