There’s a troubling new report out that has revealed that popular apps like Muslim Pro are apparently selling; using, and practically handing user data profiles to the U.S government. This is a little bit of a change compared to ordinary cases where say one’s data ends up in the hands of marketers. The fact that the U.S government is using popular prayer apps to spy; harvest, and steal the cell phone geolocation(s) of users is both alarming as it is a gross violation of almost every guaranteed right of an American citizen.
Vice was first to uncover the news although it appears Muslim Pro isn’t the only app that has been caught. As of 2020, however, more than 98m Muslims alone have downloaded or used the Pro version of the popular prayer app singularly. That does not include any of the other big-name apps that are being mined.
The discoveries appear to hone in on something called Babel Street and an associated data stream that the U.S government uses to track the location data of people around the world, Now, er, this is where it gets hairy considering that without proper governmental permission from outside territories — the Americans are in violation of god knows how many laws.
Motherboard got their hands on a number of documents; interviews with developers, and more that all confirmed the allegations.
We’ve reached out to the apps developers for media comment and will update this story when we have the necessary statement. We’ve also reached out to the governments of Saudi Arabia; the United Kingdom, and at least 4 more Middle Eastern countries for comment on this matter and the security implications posed.
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