Android apps join the iPhone in accessing your smartphone’s photos

The keystroke monitoring system known as Carrier IQ was found in Android devices just before the new year, shortly followed by the discovery that the same system was active in Apple's iPhone, too.

Three short months later and the privacy issues continue to crop up, this time with the discovery that apps can access your smartphone's photos was initially tied to the iPhone. Except it isn't just the iPhone.

"Apple came under scrutiny [last] week after reports about a loophole in iOS that could enable rogue apps to access a user's entire photo library and copying the data to a remote server without any notice," reports Jose Vilches from Techspot. "Well, it turns out iOS is not alone — at least on one of these cases."

An investigation, conducted by the New York Times, found that "Android apps do not need permission to get a user's photos, and as long as an app has the right to go to the Internet, it can copy those photos to a remote server without asking," according to Vilches.

In order to demonstrate how a recently installed app can access a smartphone's photo library, Ralph Gootee, Android developer and chief technology officer at Loupe, ran a test application.

While installing a simple timer app, Gootee was prompted to give permission for the app to access the internet (there were no warnings about access to the photo library). When Gootee launched the app and set the timer, "it goes into the photo library and posts the most recent image onto a public photo-sharing site," shares Vilches.

"There have been no reports of any Android apps actually doing this, but it's still worth taking this loophole seriously," he adds. "After all, what business does a timer app have sorting through your photos without asking?"

According to a spokesperson from Google, Android's lack of photo restrictions was a design initiative that relates to the way the company's earlier models stored data.

"We originally designed the Android photos file system similar to those of other computing platforms like Windows and Mac OS," reveals the spokesperson. "At the time, images were stored on a SD card, making it easy for someone to remove the SD card from a phone and put it in a computer to view or transfer those images."

Vilches notes an Android claim that as their mobile devices have evolved to rely on non-removable, built-in memory, they'll likely evaluate the issue and consider installing restrictions to photo access.

And though the tech giant was open to acknowledging the intrusive loophole, Google was quick to mention their policy of removing apps that inappropriately access personal data from the Android Market.

(Techspot photo)