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RESEARCH
ANALYSIS
TRENDS

Messengers and social media can serve

to disclose personal data

I was watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix earlier goes. Legally, without hacking, personal information
this month and highly recommend it. The quintessence and individual preferences are revealed that can be
of the film is that today’s technology that connects us used for behavioral predictions and manipulation.
also monetizes us - or even controls us – with
frightening consequences. Although we are aware of Check privacy settings
that already – and in general the fact that nothing is for
free on the internet - we still do not want to face the While the film focuses on social media platforms,
truth. researchers from the University of Darmstadt and the
University of Würzburg warn that popular mobile
Tristan Harris, who started the Center for Humane messengers, such as WhatsApp, disclose personal
Technology, together with Aza Raskin and Randy data through contact discovery services that make it
Fernando, makes the situation we are in pretty clear by possible to find contacts using telephone numbers from
explaining that “it is not about the technology being the the personal address book. According to the German
existential threat, but the technology’s ability to bring experts, methods that are currently used to establish
out the worst in society.” The movement calls for critical contacts pose a massive threat to the privacy of well
thinking and questioning the use of social media over a billion users. By means of very few resources,
platforms by pointing out that they are designed to the team was able to carry out workable crawl attacks
manipulate its users. on the popular messengers WhatsApp, Signal and
Telegram. The experiments show that malicious users
Unfortunately, we tend to ignore the consequences as or hackers can collect sensitive data on a large scale
good as we can or are accepting them out of and without significant restrictions by requesting
convenience. But what has been most disturbing while random telephone numbers from contact discovery
watching the film is finding out how far Facebook & Co services.
go to monetize their users.
For their study, the researchers queried 10% of all cell
“If the product is free, you’re the product”, Tristan Harris phone numbers in the US for WhatsApp and 100% for
highlights, and while most people are aware that Signal. In this way they were able to collect personal
they’re being mined for data when using social media (meta) data, as they are usually stored in the user
platforms, it’s shocking to hear how deep the probe
profiles of the messenger, including profile pictures,

September 2020: Cybersecurity & Data Safety: perpetual awareness and innovation presupposed 20