Today the amount of personal data, both meta and granulated, being collected through apps and social media sites is astonishing. That's the significant trade-off you allow those companies to siphon your data, and they reward you with 'free use' of their app or service. They even promise to make the data non-identifiable, but this is fiction. Any data, even metadata, can be pieced together into a discoverability chain. A PBS documentary showed that "sensitive information, like health services or lifestyle choices, are easily discernible from metadata with little digging."
Today though, because people are addicted to 'free' apps, those companies do not have to mine metadata; their users readily allow them full access to sensitive data like their contacts list, chat, and phone logs.
During our initial alpha rollout of Business Cards Augmented, the question came up about the gap in the app user experience and placing one's data on the BCAUG.com network. The question's tenor being why one cannot create an account on the network through the app. The answer is you should want to #MaintainTheGap.
Back in the 1960's it was expected that when you made a call, the phone company kept a record of it. If the government wanted to see that information, it would need to show probable cause to get a court order to access it.
Today, when you sign up to use apps, you habitually grant access to your most precious resources, your data. Data miners are allowed access to your contacts list, messages, etc. Under the pretense, the app will allow for seamless integration and use of your highly valued information.
When you are joining a networking app, why are you required to give access to your contacts list to use the app? Ask yourself, “Why can’t I choose singularly whom I will interact with through the app?” Many such apps will not fully function if you do not grant access. One immensely popular networking app only allows in new users through ‘invites’ disables your ability to send invites without full access to your contacts.
With your list, the app maker knows whom you talk to, your doctors, and any specialist you see. They are able to discern what temple, or church you go to, or even if you perform volunteer work and whatever causes you care most about.
These activities become even more deliberate from big tech companies like Google and Apple. Suppose you use the native Phone, Chat, and Messaging apps on an Android phone. Google's privacy policy states. "If you use our services to make and receive calls or send and receive messages, we may collect call and message log information like your phone number, calling-party number, receiving-party number, forwarding numbers, sender and recipient email address, time and date of calls and messages, duration of calls, routing information, and types and volumes of calls and messages."
Apple is only slightly better in that they encrypt all iMessage and FaceTime exchanges. iMessage and FaceTime are not the default apps launched when you make a phone call and send a chat message; you have to explicitly turn them on (at least on my iPhone).
Long story short, you routinely give these companies the right to log all your calls and access your chats and the attachments regardless of their nature being personal, risqué or business-related. That should send shivers down your spine. Yes, we expect that from the phone companies, but why do Google, Apple, and other companies need your sensitive, personal and most private details?
We haven’t been able to find the privacy policies for the native phone, chat, and message apps for Apple phones (We’re sure they're out there). However, we suspect they have a policy similar to that of Google's when it comes to siphoning the data from those sources (that's pure speculation on our part).
Using the Business Cards Augmented app: When you engage the BCAUG.com server, your information remains your property. Indeed, you do not even have to register with us to use the app!
Our BCAUG.com server collects and logs minimal information when you use the app:
Finally, we do not log or track in our app or our server if you launched and used your phone's native apps to call a number, how long or often you call a number. If you chatted with that person or visited their website or other social media touch points through our apps UI.
In this regard you have to stop trying to save a penny to only end up losing a nickel. The fact is if you are not paying for an app outright, and there is no discernible form of payment for service in its ecosystem, you will pay for that service in ways that you don't see.
As for our revenue model concerning Business Cards Augmented, it comes from selling reasonably priced annual subscriptions at BCAUG.com℠ for the placement of business contact data onto the BCAUG network.℠
There are apps and services out there that respect your privacy, and yes, they do cost money. Ultimately you pay for whatever service is provided either upfront or by being data chattel.