Your private photos stored in the iPhone are not as private as you may think they are. You see, iOS app developers can potentially access and copy your entire gallery to a remote server. Moreover, if location data is included within the photos, developers can find out your whereabouts. To make things even trickier, potential harmful application won’t ask user for the permission to access his/her photos — rather, it only asks to access his/her location with gallery access coming as a free bonus.
No need to panic just yet. As far as we know, no developer is taking advantage of your private photos. Moreover, due to Apple’s widely criticized application approval process which involves screening for nefarious behavior, something like that most likely won’t happen, though you never know.
As a matter of fact some apps were taking people’s address book information without their knowledge, prompting criticism to the company.
Apple first permitted full access to the photo library in 2010 when iOS 4 was launched. This “policy” change was envisioned to make photo apps more efficient. Needless to say, Apple declined to comment…
[Via: Economic Times of India]