Free apps and social networks are聽exchanging their services聽for聽increasing amounts of personal data –聽and the average user has no idea.
That stark聽claim聽is the central motivation聽behind a new UK messaging service, YEO, which stands for ‘Your Eye Only’ and aims to bring privacy back to our online lives.
Facebook, the most high-profile of all social media platforms, has been under intense scrutiny since it emerged early last year that Cambridge Analytica聽had harvested the personal data of millions of its members鈥� profiles聽without their consent.
“[The word] ‘Delete’ does not exist in Facebook’s vocabulary, I can tell you that for sure,鈥澛燙EO Alan Jones聽claimed in an interview with聽老九品茶Cloud.
鈥淚’ve been extremely alarmed by the way data is being used and how it can not only corrupt lives but lead to a loss of life from misuse.
鈥淔ree apps harvest data and then sell that data to Facebook for them to commercialise even further.
鈥淚t’s impossible to maintain the service without somehow commercialising on that data that you are harvesting.鈥�
The YEO app has a set of security features unlike those seen in the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
The聽most immediate difference is continuous facial recognition. The app stays open only for as long as the user鈥檚 face, and only their face, is in view of the device鈥檚 camera.
鈥淵ou can never see it unless it’s the actual recipient. It encrypts the data channel and only decrypts based on facial recognition,” explained Jones.
Senders can also stipulate where the message is read, for example聽only inside or outside of the recipient鈥檚 workplace.
The CEO聽says he is聽on a mission to better educate users to the subtle technical difference between 鈥榮haring鈥� and 鈥榩ublishing鈥�.
鈥淎s humans, we need to understand how the internet is being used to commercially drive advertising and what that actually means to us on an everyday level,鈥� he explained.
鈥淲hen we share, we have control. When we go on a social media platform like Facebook, we publish. We relinquish control.鈥�
Facebook聽has announced plans to share data from WhatsApp聽and Instagram, which it owns, with the lead platform to target adverts at users.
Earlier this month Germany banned it from doing so and also instructed it to stop taking data from third-party apps and combining it with its own for the same purpose.
鈥淢ark Zuckerburg has been our biggest advertising medium. He’s continued to fail the user base,”聽claimed Jones.
鈥淎nd it isn’t just Facebook: Google is the same. There are several other companies capitalising on data harvesting.鈥�
Despite a long professional history in tech and cyber security, Jones鈥� decision to create the app was made after seeing his children freely share images through these platforms.
He says his first idea –聽long before the launch of social media聽platform Snapchat –聽was to create an app which allowed photos to be shared for a limited few seconds before being destroyed.聽However he was involved in another business at the time and so this idea never came to fruition.
Now Jones and his daughter, co-founder and CMO Sarah Norford-Jones, are championing data privacy together with London-based YEO.
Because the app forgoes the standard data-harvesting revenue streams, it instead offers a free 30-day trial before charging a monthly fee of 拢1.99.
Asked if the price would be off-putting to users who expect free services, Jones says the cost has been carefully considered.
鈥淒o we really think nothing of our privacy?” he asked.聽“Are we willing to pay less than the price of a cup of coffee for privacy?
鈥淚t means that you’re not being continuously profiled, and your closest secrets are not sitting in a database ready to be commercialised.
鈥淲ith YEO, at all stages you control what’s being sent and who sees it, where they see it and for how long they see it.
鈥淚t is very powerful for the sender to be able to dictate those terms. It’s messaging ‘on your terms’.鈥�
The company now hopes to establish the app as a leading provider of privacy-based messaging, drive the product鈥檚 desktop version and enter the FinTech and medtech markets.
Jones said it is also eyeing a move into voice messaging, with the same key security features.