New Bill Would Require Warning Labels on Apps Made by China, Russia – IOTW Report

New Bill Would Require Warning Labels on Apps Made by China, Russia

WFB: Congress is considering new legislation that would require warning labels on smartphone applications made in countries the United States deems a national security threat, including China, Russia, and Iran.

The legislation spearheaded by Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, would require app store operators to inform Americans before they download an application that could surreptitiously collect their data and send it to an enemy state.

“This bill will help inform us as to what exactly we’re agreeing to when we hit the download button on some apps on the app store,” Banks told the Washington Free Beacon. “If an app is being used by a foreign government to take advantage of us, we need to be informed.”

Data harvesting threatens anyone who uses a smartphone. Applications routinely siphon off data and send it to servers hosted in foreign countries. Any app produced by a hostile regime could pose a significant risk to American users. read more

12 Comments on New Bill Would Require Warning Labels on Apps Made by China, Russia

  1. Or do what I do and before loading an app onto your phone check the required permissions asked for by that app. I have no apps on my phone other than the weather app that came on it but I denied all its permissions except location. All apps are information tools to spy on you.

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  2. @PHenry ~ doesn’t matter anymore … FCC mandated all flips that have been made since at least 2015 to be trackable … under certain judicial guidelines, of course.

    … still got my 2012 flip

    I’ve always said this generation has the knowledge of the world at their very finger-tips yet are as vapid as Joe Biden

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  3. If you are using any google powered crap you are being tracked anyway. Doesn’t matter what the endpoint facilitator is.

    I was trying to discover a network entity that had logged into my sat… I had no idea what it was at the time. It turns out it was Jennifer’s cellular telephone. I eventually found a google page that gave me a minute by minute map of where she had driven and walked — where she stopped, and how long…

    Everything was there under one google password.

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  4. Because. You know. Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States (and, wink wink, nudge nudge, “non”-governmental organizations of loyal allies) are not security threats to American users of smartphone applications.

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  5. Start looking into companies and who owns them. Wake up and be aware. We have to do our part too. That nice sounding American name may just be the wolf in sheep’s clothing! The Chinese government had a track record of using nominally private entities as proxies for state power.

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