Payment and wallet apps are primarily built to perform operations like transferring money between wallets/bank accounts, recharging phones, etc. However some of these apps get to access to your sensitive information, like your contact list, which WiFi networks you're on, your call record data, which apps you've installed, the microphone of your application, among other things. When installing an application, most users accept permission requests without reading them, and realising their implications. Also Read: On Indian mobile banking apps and the sensitive user data they collect – Part 2 MediaNama looked into 12 different mobile wallets apps and reviewed Android permissions that these apps were seeking. We also spoke with Internet security consultant Akash Mahajan to understand how different Android permissions can gain access to sensitive user data. Based on this we narrowed down some privacy issues that these apps could pose to a user: 1. Read your Web bookmarks and history Out of all the permission requests, the Paytm app on Android was the only application requesting access to "read your Web bookmarks and history". None of the other wallet apps that MediaNama reviewed required this permission. Note that a Reddit user in April pointed out that an Uber app update requested same permission; upon flagging it to Uber, the company immediately took the permission down. More here 2. Read sensitive log data What it means: Every app logs device and app specific information every time it executes a command, completes an updates, or when a user logs-in with his User ID. In…
