Sarahah Secretly Uploads Contacts to Test an Upcoming Feature

The app has been used by millions who’re keen on anonymous feedback.

Sarahah is an anonymous messaging app available for free.

(Photo: The Quint)

The viral 'honesty app' Sarahah has found itself in controversy, with reports alleging that the anonymous platform might not be anonymous after all. The app has been found uploading the user's phone contacts onto the company's servers.

A senior security analyst Zachary Julian, who works for IT security consulting firm Bishop Fox, was the first to discover Sarahah uploading private information, using a monitoring software BURP Suite.

As soon as you log into the application, it transmits all of your email and phone contacts stored on the Android operating system.

Zachary Julian speaking to The Intercept

However, Sarahah's founder Zain al-Abidin Tawfiq said contact lists were being uploaded "for a planned 'find your friends' feature" that has not been released as yet.

In a tweet, Tawfiq wrote that the data request will be removed on next update.

Though the app asks for user's permission to access contacts, there is no such feature in the app where these contacts would even be required. Even after Tawfiq’s admission, it is hard to understand the point of uploading contacts, for a so-called anonymous app, to work on an unreleased feature.

It often seems suspicious if users do not get anything out of granting access to apps to their contact lists.

For example, earlier in 2017, the newsletter unsubscription service Unroll.me drew a lot of criticism following allegations that it sold user data to cab-hailing service Uber.

(With IANS inputs)

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