GetContact is a popular mobile application that serves as a call manager for Android with the spam blocking feature. It allows identifying who is calling you by maintaining a large database of phone numbers. As a user of GetContact, you can see how the number is saved in other users' address book.
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It was launched towards the end of 2017 and quickly gained significant traction, ranking among the top apps in various app stores. With over 100 million downloads on Google Play alone, the creators of the service estimate their user base to exceed 400 million users.
The application declares seemingly good intentions. Its aims at preventing unwanted calls from spammers and phone scammers is a necessary and demanded service in the modern world.
💡However, GetContact gained its popularity for a completely different reason.
The main feature of the app is as follows. The user, having received an unwanted call, for example, from the "Security Department of the Bank", can mark this phone number with a tag of arbitrary content, for example: "Scammers". Now, if other users of the application receive a call from the same number, they will see this tag and be able to ignore the call.
One concern with GetContact is that when users grant it access to their phonebook (which is a common practice), their contacts' phone numbers and how they are labeled are uploaded to the application's server and transformed into tags. As a result, the previously impersonal nature of phone numbers becomes enriched with additional information from users' phonebooks.
How can GetContact leak your personal data?
The app has the following logic
- If you are registered with Getcontact, then all other users of the application see all your tags, that is, how you are saved by other people.
- If you are not registered in the application, then only one tag will be visible to users. Perhaps it is selected by the number of matches, since most often it is the first and last name. It is this information that will be displayed when you call Getcontact users, even if you are not presented in their phone book.
Depending on how many contacts you have, and what are your relations with those people, tags in GetContact can tell a lot about you.
- Your full name, its variations and your monikers.
- Places of work and your position, e.g. John Senior JS Developer.
- Place of residence, e.g. Mumbai committee, Neighbor from flat 18.
- Family and business relationships: Ramesh's son.
- Anything else, limited to only the imagination of your mates: Tennis rookie, rude guy, and so on.
Even if your personal data could not be earlier found in any data leak, there is a great chance that GetContact knows you well. Anyone can get this information by phone number. This is your personal data, but no one asks you for the right to publish it.
ℹ️Here I assume that GetContact are nice people who themselves do not sell your data and do not share them with anyone intentionally. But that's how the service works.
Now you may ask: What I am supposed to do to hide myself from GetContact?
Remove your data from GetContant
- Install GetContant on your smartphone from its app store. It is required even if you are not going to use it.
- After that, navigate to their official web site.
- In the footer, click Manage Your Privacy Profile under the Help section.
- Now you will be prompted to authorize yourself on the website, so do it.
- Finally, under Visibility settings, turn off the Search visibility option.
- Confirm the change. You will be automatically singed out from the app and the service.
From now, GetContact will only show your numbers. It will not expose anything about you. Its users will only see your phone number. Instead of tags, it will tell that the user is hiding their details.
Brave new world
Finally, it is worth mentioning that you cannot actually do anything to prevent your data from leaking. GetContant is not the only such app. There are also TrueCaller (here is a similar link to remove yourself from their database), NumBuster, and tens of smaller apps with the similar functionality. Your neighborhood and social circle will mostly happily use them and make your data shine on the Internet.
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