Well, there might be a security concern because the app is not as private as it claims to be. News reports are doing rounds of social media and according to them, Sarahah is stealing all your contact details.
Well, Sarahah is enjoying a crazy fan base and is very popular among iPhone as well as Android users. However, latest news is that the app silently uploads the contact list of the users to the server of the company and that too without any reason.
This was first spotted by Zachary Julian, a security analyst. Whenever any user downloads this app and installs it, all the phone contacts and email IDs are uploaded to the server of Sarahah.
What’s more surprising is that the app takes permission to access contacts but there is no such feature which needs “Contacts”. The app doesn’t disclose that the data would be uploaded to the server.
Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq, the founder of Sarahah, finally responded to this issue. Here’s what he tweeted…
Sarahah App asked for contacts for a planned "find your friends" feature
— Zain-Alabdin زين العابدين (@ZainAlabdin878) August 27, 2017
The tweet read, “Sarahah App asked for contacts for a planned “find your friends” feature”
He explained that although there’s no feature right now, there’ll surely be a feature “Find your friends” in future. They had already planned to incorporate it, but it was delayed owing to technical glitches. Further, he told that in the next update, this data request will be removed.
Here’s how people responded to his tweet…
What about data collected till now?
Hi Zain, untill the update to fix the flow what the issue with data collected until now? and what you gonna do about privacy issue ?
— Nayla Salibi (@Salibi) August 28, 2017
Should have waited for an update!
https://twitter.com/fgandiya/status/902150910813593600
The justification isn’t good!
Doesn't seem like a good justification..
— Mayed (@MayedAhmed_) August 27, 2017
Why you didn’t mention in privacy policy?
If your confident with your statement. Then, why you didn't mentioned about this in the privacy policy policy. @Sarahah_com
— DailyTuner (@tuner_desk) August 29, 2017
You are a liar!
You are a liar.. nobody wants to use the app anymore.
Close the project.— Ilaria 💖 (@TheStingerX) August 28, 2017
What do you have to say about this?
