Obama and Romney election apps suck up personal data, research finds
Millions of US voters could be downloading smartphone apps created to promote the campaigns of President Obama and his Republican election rival Mitt Romney without noticing the intrusive permissions demanded by the software, GFI Software has reported.
Looking at the 'Obama for America' and 'Mitt's VP' apps for Android and iOS, the company uncovered a surprising volume of information users will be giving up to the candidate's campaign databases on themselves and even their friends and families.
Romney's app asks not only for a person's name, address and home phone number to create a 'MyMitt' account, but (failing that) a connection to Facebook able to collect data there, including on friends.
It also notices a user's device ID, mobile number, carrier, GPS and cell locations and warns them they might be added to the Romney campaign's contact list, presumably for priority telephone canvassing. It even asks for permission to access the smartphone's camera and audio recording, although this isn't used by the app.
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