An Austrian scientist by the name Felix Krause, currently at Google has made one of his discovery public about a mobile phone app that has raised many eyebrows in the tech world. The app secretly takes snapshots of the mobile user from the built-in camera in the mobile phone that he or she uses without any indication of the act. The images are then sent anywhere on the internet. It is done so silently that there is no clue to the mobile user in any form that the pictures have been taken and uploaded to the Internet.
Krause believes that the pictures taken this way will cause privacy breaches that may lead to criminal offenses such as identity theft.
He presented a solution by suggesting that you need to revoke access to mobile camera and possibly the internet on your mobile phone and allow access to just a few apps that are the trusted ones. Many experts believe that it is not a comprehensive solution because there will always be applications that can make through the security filters of mobile phones.
Another solution that has been suggested is a straightforward one. Just cover your cell phone camera until needed. It can be done with opaque tape or a physical sticky note paper.
The situation got a tint of utopia when Facebook was found with developing technologies that can detect and analyze the emotional expression of a mobile user via the mobile cam. The Facebook picks up the smiling or frowning emotions with Mark Zuckerberg’s “emotion technology” and shows the more of the internet stuff that keeps the user happy and keeps on spending bucks.
As the technological discoveries are making headlines the world over, there is one outstanding mobile app that is steadily emerging called TheOneSpy (abbreviated with TOS) with a feature dubbed as the “cam spy.”
The spy camera app is developed with the intention to help worried parents to keep a watch on their children when they are not around them. A physical access is required for the mobile phone once and it takes roughly thirty seconds to download and install the spy app on your kid’s mobile. The app is designed to use the mobile camera not only to take pictures but also to make complete videos and stream it over to the parents over the Internet to keep their mom and dad tension free when the kids are out. The output of the mobile camera from a kid’s mobile device can be conveniently viewed over an Internet connection on your desktop or a mobile device.
The act of surveillance and monitoring children with the mobile applications like TheOneSpy (TOS) has made this matter controversial altogether. It is a constructive use of technology that helps parents to make the critical decisions regarding their kids without bothering or intervening directly in their activities.
It resolves an age-old problem for parents. But, the makers of this app also warn that this app can be used for other purposes that are a topic of great concern and debate keeping the definition of privacy ambiguous and making this significant issue an evolving phenomenon.
It is to be noted that TOS that takes hold of the groundbreaking technology in mobile applications can be used by people in relationships to pry into the activities of their partners secretly. This means that the use of this app makes the breach of privacy to the extent that can be offensive and counterproductive as well as emotionally disturbing for some.
The situation gets even worse if an app like this is used for blackmailing or for mischievous pranks that can lead to distrust and chaos. The people especially parents may agree that the offense lies in the use of the app. It can be used constructively to raise children that get proper attention to get disciplined from their parents’ vocation, or it can create people who use it with evil intent.
One simile to this situation is that of the use of a firearm. You can use a gun to take a life of an innocent person, or you can use it to defend yourself against oppression. The use of an app to keep an eye on your child with enhanced parental control cannot be ruled out because it can be used to break the law just like in the example of a firearm.
The TOS app is found useful in other applications such as in the case of corporate monitoring via spy cam. It is a case when an employee on the job is kept under surveillance for the duration of the work hours. It is considered that more connectivity of an employee especially when the management personnel are not around as the employee may be on fieldwork that can unleash higher productivity and better performance in the long run.
No matter from which angle you look at it, apps like TheOneSpy is a remarkable piece of groundbreaking technology, and as being the case with many other technologies, it cannot be killed out of the scene because of its apparently disturbing applications. Apps like these have found their way into our lives by one way or another leading to productive gains under every norms of ethics.