NZ Herald Android App wants excessive permissions

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57 posts

Master Geek

#980432 5-Feb-2014 00:03

I find the Article on NZ Herald written 3 March 2012 a little ironic given their own intrusive permissions in the latest version
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10789477

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ajobbins

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#980434 5-Feb-2014 00:41

andrewbnz: I find the Article on NZ Herald written 3 March 2012 a little ironic given their own intrusive permissions in the latest version
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10789477

Very interesting article. Wonder if Max Flanigan is still head of mobile, and if I can get him on the phone

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Klipspringer

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#980479 5-Feb-2014 08:08

ajobbins:
Klipspringer:
ajobbins: I wrote to the Herald on Saturday, but am yet to get a reply. I'll give them a day or two longer then I'll send my email off to the Privacy Commissioner.

Don't think u have a case. If you don't like what the app is doing then don't use it. Its easy enough to see what the app is doing it does after all "ask you for permission". What more do you expect?

Now I am not a legal expert by a long stretch, but my understanding of the privacy act is that NZ orgnaisations are only allowed to collect informaton that is genuinely relevent to their normal business activitesGoogle Drive. If they want to collect my phone book for marketing reasons, they have obligations under the privacy act to justify why they need it.

http://privacy.org.nz/the-privacy-act-and-codes/privacy-principles/purpose-for-collection-of-personal-information-principle-one/

But you giving them permission to collect all the rest.

Just like you grant facebook and all the other apps permission.

In their case they can easily argue that they need access to these settings. the flaw I see here is the wording "genuinely relevant to their normal business activites". I have not read the act so I'm no expert either. But there are a number of reasons they can say they require this information.

This one is a weird case though because it is afterall just a news app. What exactly do they want access to the camera/contacts for. I always make sure I look at these things carefully before I just install any old app. There are plenty of dodgy ones out there. This is just one out of an extremely long list. The joys of Android!

timmmay

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#980495 5-Feb-2014 08:35

I just wish when you went back to the story list after reading a story it didn't refresh and go back to the top of the story list. So annoying I rarely bother with NZHerald.

TinyTim

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#980514 5-Feb-2014 09:11

JimmyH:

Don't tend to use either the Herald or Stuff apps (or websites) much any more - ever since they abandoned actual journalism and factual reporting in favour of a "news lite" mix of stale reprints, puff pieces and advertorials.

This. Example: Two stories on the front of last Saturday's Dom Post. One was about the Chow Bros' business tactics, the other was a three yo who liked hitting golf balls. If these were news, they certainly weren't important enough to make it to any quality news website (I read Radio NZ, though it does tend to be a bit brief).

linw

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#980569 5-Feb-2014 11:04

timmmay: I just wish when you went back to the story list after reading a story it didn't refresh and go back to the top of the story list. So annoying I rarely bother with NZHerald.

Yea, that practice bugs me too.

ajobbins

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#980656 5-Feb-2014 12:59

Klipspringer: But you giving them permission to collect all the rest.

Just because you give the permission (perhaps without realising), still doesn't mean they are allowed to collect it. People may accept it not because they want to give away that information, but they may really want to continue to access the NZ Herald news app. Giving someone permission to do something (especially when the Android descriptions can be a bit vague) doesn't excuse them from their privacy obligations.

Just like you grant facebook and all the other apps permission.

Facebook is not a NZ company and the NZ Privacy Act doesn't apply to them.

In their case they can easily argue that they need access to these settings. the flaw I see here is the wording "genuinely relevant to their normal business activites". I have not read the act so I'm no expert either. But there are a number of reasons they can say they require this information.

I can't see any reasonable reason why they would need access to my phone book. They might LIKE access to my phone book so they can deeply mine my personal info, but just because they want to mine my info, doesn't mean it's reasonable for them to do so.

This one is a weird case though because it is afterall just a news app. What exactly do they want access to the camera/contacts for. I always make sure I look at these things carefully before I just install any old app. There are plenty of dodgy ones out there. This is just one out of an extremely long list. The joys of Android!

Something like camera access is justifiable, as I think there is a feature where you can submit news/photos back to them. Obviously they need the permission for that reason. Access to my entire phone book, call history and browser history, not so much.

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ajobbins

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#980692 5-Feb-2014 14:22

Have an initial response from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner already. They have said the policy team were 'very interested' in my comments and are looking into the matter further.

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hairy1

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#980702 5-Feb-2014 14:36

The silence from the NZ Herald team is deafening. I would have throught someone social media savvy would have popped up by now!

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

nathan

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#981011 5-Feb-2014 20:59

write a letter to the editor, LOL

Have you been tweeting them?

Their main social media guy left recently to go work at Telecom NZ

ajobbins

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#981121 6-Feb-2014 11:02

nathan: write a letter to the editor, LOL

Have you been tweeting them?

Their main social media guy left recently to go work at Telecom NZ

I tweeted them a few days ago, but no reply. Looking at their twitter stream, it looks like it's a one way street and they don't engage, they just push. Still no reply to my email to them either.

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old3eyes

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#981175 6-Feb-2014 12:51

ajobbins:
nathan: write a letter to the editor, LOL

Have you been tweeting them?

Their main social media guy left recently to go work at Telecom NZ

I tweeted them a few days ago, but no reply. Looking at their twitter stream, it looks like it's a one way street and they don't engage, they just push. Still no reply to my email to them either.

If it's anything like when I emailed Stuff about their app not installing on my Nexus 7 the silence will be deafening.

Regards,

Old3eyes

ajobbins

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#981215 6-Feb-2014 13:56

I've sent a tweet to NZH social media editor @paulharper_nzh, so hopefully he will respond.

Thanks to nathan for finding the contact.

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freitasm

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#981524 6-Feb-2014 21:02

@ajobbins Hey Adam, I've seen a bit of feedback about this. I'll pass it on to our dev team and get back to you. Cheers,

— Paul Harper (@paulharper_nzh) February 6, 2014

I am one who don't believe you will get answers anyway. Not if they are like the Stuff folks, who say "will come back to you..." and never do.

freitasm on Keybase | My technology disclosure

ajobbins

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#981840 7-Feb-2014 14:25

freitasm:I am one who don't believe you will get answers anyway. Not if they are like the Stuff folks, who say "will come back to you..." and never do.

I'm not expecting APN to come back with any kind of meaningful response. The office of the privacy commissioner did however seem very interested in looking further into it, so hopefully at the very least that will have some effect.

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