The new Consumer Reports app Permission Slip claims to help you protect your identity online by clawing back some of the data you have unwittingly given to third parties. However, I looked at the privacy policy and was… Perturbed.
Data sale
We do not sell your personal information in a way that most people would think of as a sale. However, we do participate in online targeted advertising and use analytics which allows tech companies, in exchange for our use of their services, to use user information collected from our App to improve their own products and to improve the services they provide to others. Under some laws, this is considered our “sale” of your user data…
I would call it a sale, thanks.
They specifically sell this data:
- Online Activity and Device Information
- Data that advertising networks and social media companies already have about you, so they can identify you on their platform, such as your email address or user ID
- Download information
They elaborate:
We share Personal Information about our users with third party advertising companies, including social media companies, so they can learn about the kinds of audiences that use our products and display advertisements for our services to them and users similar to them.
Online Activity and Device Information
This includes “your interaction with Permission Slip through technical means, including” (as a couple examples, but definitely not limited to) “cookies, web beacons, and other technologies”.
This is data they feel comfortable selling.
Analytics data
They also collect and transmit to third parties (My best guess is to Google analytics, but they don’t specify):
- The length of time you spend on Permission Slip
- How you navigate through Permission Slip
- Which company profiles you have viewed
- The number and frequency of your interactions with Permission Slip
- How you use Permission Slip features
Google and Facebook collaboration
We may use Ad networks such as Google Ads and Meta and their associated tracking technologies to help display the Permission Slip ads you may see on other apps and websites
Deleting your data?
Hopefully you have half a decade to wait, and that’s if they don’t sell your data to a different company by dissolving in the meantime.
- Your digital signature and authorization are sent to secure storage [not deleted]
- Your personal information, request history, and other information are set to inactive status
- Inactive information will be deleted after five years…
Worst privacy policy legally allowed
CR carves out a couple extra provisions for California and Colorado residents, but insists it might not follow through on them:
We may decline to honor your request where an exception applies, or where there is no legal obligation with which CR must comply.
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Dear lord, I have been using them for years
I have good news… The Permission Slip app launched super recently, and that app privacy policy has nothing to do with anything else. If you didn’t download this particular app, this post does not affect you.
This is more of a “what are you doing, Consumer Reports” message that I hope they will see and fix.
Yea…any app that claims to help your privacy is 100% not helping your privacy. Remember people, if it sounds too good to be true, then it is.
Basically your goal should be to have AS FEW apps installed as humanly possible.
100% IF IT’S PROPRIETARY. If the thing is FOSS, you can verify if that’s the case.
