MyPermissions helps you keep apps from accessing your data

By AJ Dellinger June 17, 2014

mypermissions helps keep apps accessing data app — Image used with permission by copyright holder

We worry a lot about online security, but we also tend to regularly and willingly surrender information, no questions asked, to apps and services. Every time you link an account or grant access to an application, you’re giving it permission to take a look at all the information stored within your account. MyPermissions intends to help you protect your privacy.

The mobile security app recently released version 3.0 of its service for Android devices. The update adds a dashboard, showing all of the apps that are accessing the your personal data. It also gives the you the opportunity to block or approve access of apps when they attempt to extract information.

The app connects with popular services, asking you to log in so it can analyze apps that have access to your data. We had MyPermissions scan our Facebook and Twitter accounts to see who we had trusted our data to, and were surprised at the sheer amount of apps with access. It’s a list that is the culmulation of a lot of time on those social networks, but those apps have remained active and retrieve information long after we stopped used them. Luckily, MyPermissions makes it easy to revoke the privileges of those services, which we promptly did.

MyPermissions works with Facebook and Twitter as well as Google, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Instagram, Foursquare, and Flickr. Once an account is linked, MyPermissions also gives an alert when a new application is attempting to access data so you can stay out in front of protecting your privacy rather than playing from behind and trying to take it back.

MyPermissions is available for free on iOS and Android devices.

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AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…

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