Some serious privacy concerns

Discussion of EssentialPIM for Android and synchronization
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

Likely the app needed to check for your registration info, if you're a Pro version user.
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

I'm a Pro user of the PC version, my Android version is the free version. (Can I upgrade to the Pro version without a Google account?)

If the option to opt-out of Google snooping does only work for the Pro version, you should grey-out or remove this checkbox in the free version. On my phone (Android 5.1), this option currently looks like a placebo (which could possibly violate GDPR, but IANAL).

(It's a real pity that you gave up your former privacy-friendly approach at some time!)

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

The option for sharing analytics data works as for the Pro as fro the Free versions. Were there any other requests to outside IP addresses except for the very first one after the update?
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

Yes, there were. One request every few hours.

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by a8907433 »

Hello ik!
(Can I upgrade to the Pro version without a Google account?)
Yes, there is. I use my smartphone with deactivated Google playstore, Google services and so on. I wrote an email to Astonsoft Support, how to pay, and how to activate AEPIM pro, they told me. Do the same!
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

Thanks! Will double check whether there's any remaining and unaccounted for requests left in the code.
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

While this seems to have been corrected with an update at some time in the past year, the new v5.8 of EPIM for Android obviously reintroduced it: Immediately after the update (and several times since then) it wanted to contact a Google IP despite the fact that I have deactivated this Google Analytics stuff in the settings.

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

Any news concerning the aforementioned privacy breach of EPIM for Android v5.8?

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

Will check it out.
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

Some progress on this?

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

Please do the following:
1. Enable the option if it's not enabled at the moment
2. Disable the option
3. Exit EssentialPIM and restart your device
Will the problem be happening after that? If so, mention which instrument you use for getting info about the pockets going out of EPIM.
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

I did as you requested and indeed, no further connection attempts have appeared since then. So it could be fixed, at least for now.

However, I haven't touched this option for a long time and nevertheless the connection requests reappeared at some time in the past. How can I be sure that this will never happen again in the future?

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by admin »

All right, good to know, thanks! The problem likely appeared again when we switched from the legacy to the latest analytics library version. Shouldn't be happening anymore in the future.
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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

Sorry to have to report that, but the connection attempts reappeared some hours ago! I haven't changed anything in the settings.

See this screenshot:
EPIM.jpg
This is an excerpt from the protocol of "No Root Firewall". The green lines indicate allowed outbound connections. The red lines indicates connection attempty blocked by the firewall. This app has worked reliably since I started using Android devices and works without having to root the device (it installs a local VPN).

Have you ever thought about dropping this analytics stuff completely? If you are interested in crash reports, there are other means to give the user the possibility to report them (e.g. by sending an e-mail prefilled with the stack trace like some other apps do). This way you get rid about any GDPR-related legal problems (sending data to non-EU countries although the user deliberately opted out of this could be a serious offence and I'm not sure if "software bug" or "switching a library" would serve as an excuse.)

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Re: Some serious privacy concerns

Post by lk »

EPIM for Android v5.8.1 just came in in my tablet (Android 8.1) and upon start of the new version (you'll guess it:) my firewall again recorded a connection attempt to some Google server.

So it's still not fixed. Pity.

lk
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