According to the latest disclosures, mobile phone users give up a lot of their power whenever they’re on their handsets. Cloud-based software is sharing content with a remote server. Most companies would say that their security is enough to keep the data private from other parties but this is usually not the case.
Last spring, consumers were alarmed to discover that Dropbox, which is a cloud-based storage provider, was less secure than advertised. The Federal Trade Commission said that Dropbox lied when it said that user content was inaccessible without the password. In reality, the company can access users’ contents anytime.
Dropbox is a backup service, which means that users should also have another copy of the content stored elsewhere. This is likely located in one’s home computer, laptop or mobile device. The security issue is more important with mobile.
Companies such as Google and Apple have too much control of data stored in one’s device. Earlier this week, Apple was asked whether its approved apps protect user data. This is because Path, an iOS app was discovered to upload users’ address books without permission from the owners. As a result, Apple enforced a policy change to require iOS apps to ask specific permissions.
