9 Major Flaws That Tech Companies Need To Fix Immediately

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the California-based digital rights group, has launched an initiative called “Fix It Already” that highlights 9 big privacy and security related issues that tech companies need to resolve immediately. The 9 issues are spread across different tech platforms including social media companies, operating system, enterprise platforms and more.

As EFF describes, some of these issues exist dues to wrongly implemented business decisions by companies, whereas, others are security flaws that could risk users’ privacy and data.

Here are the 9 Issues that need to be fixed immediately.

1. Android should let users deny and revoke apps’ internet permissions since there is no option as of now. What if you don’t want to share your data with app creators?

2. Apple should let users encrypt their iCloud backups. iCloud is an important part of the Apple ecosystem, and many people use it. Apple can access your data anytime, and EFF wants the iPhone maker to deploy encryption on it.

3. Facebook should stop sharing your contact number with advertisers when you put it up for 2FA or receiving alerts. This can help the social media company in improving its already tarnished image.

4. Slack should stop retaining the messages of free workspace and give the account holders complete access to their messages. Even when a free account holder decides to part ways with Slack, his/her messages are still retained by the enterprise platform for an indefinite time.

5. Twitter should deploy end-to-end encryption in direct messages. I am surprised to know that Twitter can read our DMs.

6. Venmo, the Paypal owned mobile payment service, should give users an option to make their friend list private. This is a major security flaw that Venmo must fix as soon as possible.

7. Verizon should provide an option to disable or delete the AppFlash app that comes pre-installed on their phones. The app is spyware in disguise and shares the details of the apps you install in your smartphone with Verizon’s partners.

8. WhatsApp should add a feature to reject annoying group invitations. Currently, you can block a group or exit from a group but what if you don’t want to be a part of that group in the first place?

9. Microsoft should allow Windows 10 users to keep their disk encryption keys to themselves even if they do not sign with their Microsoft account. This is a failure in Microsoft’s business encryption mechanism. The company should provide an option if users do not want to share the encryption key with Microsoft.

EFF has also asked users their opinion if they have faced any of the issues they have enlisted in their “Fix It Already” campaign.