Pitu, the social media app that shows how people would look like if they were given a Korean/Asian model touch up, has been popular with lots of Filipinos as well as OFWs since the photo manipulation app makes it easy for its users to face swap with good-looking Korean and Asian models in a few clicks. However, a concerned netizen warns that there may be risks involved behind the fun-filled app.
Milo Pacamara posted that all of the users of the Pitu app risk having their contact details, phone contacts, messages, last known location, and device information accessed by the app, as well as access to a host of other system commands. This means that the app makers now have the users’ details and some of their private data once the phone data synchronizes with that of the apps servers. “You just allowed the app creators and infra untethered access to the following data in your smart phone, most of which doesn’t have anything to do with Photography functions,” said Pacamara.
Here’s the Facebook thread
Suspicious Permissions
However, MB Quin in the same thread responded that most other apps require similar seemingly unrelated permissions. She says that the “Record audio” permission was a common practice for future expansion and Pitu already enables users to add their audio. Coarse and Fine locations were to be used mainly for targeted ads rather than as a means to pinpoint exact locations. Read phone state was for the phone status, network information, as well as reading and writing on the phone’s memory/SD card, and READ_LOGS was for backwards-compatibility. “Ask questions instead of assuming things,” he adds.
Pitu has already posted an official statement on their Weibo account denying any allegations of any data leakage. CGTN also adds that PITU ensures its users that they would neither use nor archive any of their users’ personal information as well as their uploaded photos.
Preventive Measures
For those who have already used the Pitu app, you can proceed to tweak the settings of Pitu on your mobile through “App Permissions” and set everything to “Always deny” or “Never” or whatever is the equivalent of that on your phone, save for the camera permission. Users also have the option to delete the app altogether.
