When your own flashlight is spying on you, something is wrong.
That, at any rate, is the Federal Trade Commission's thinking
in a case that illustrates how, in today's electronic world,
privacy concerns can lurk in the most unlikely contexts.
The case involved a simple flashlight app used on Android cell
phones. The app, called "Brightest Flashlight Free," has
been downloaded by Android users tens of millions of times. It
works by activating all the device's lights, including the
screen and LED camera flash, to provide illumination.
But behind the scenes, there was more to the app than light.
There was data -- data about the place where it was used
("geolocation"), tied to data about the device
("persistent device identifiers"). And after being
collected, that data was transmitted to third parties including
advertising networks.
