Flipkart wants to know who you have been talking to!

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Indian Retail giant – Flipkart updated it’s Mobile App yesterday (04 April 2018) and now wants permission to read your call log!

Flipkart, India’s biggest homegrown B2C eCommerce company, has over 1 Crore installations (52 lakh ratings in playstore) of it’s Mobile App (precisely 5,222,960 at the time of writing this article). The latest update (Beta) has been released by Flipkart yesterday – 04th of April and so it prompted for an update. As I would normally do (and majority of the users do), I approved of the update with couple of more apps.

But then, a prompt sought my attention…



What? Why would an eCommerce application want to read my call log?

I decided to dig deeper and checked the existing permissions. OH MY GOD!

Not that it just wants to read my call log, has it also been listening to what I have been talking all through the day? Don’t believe it? Check it yourselves!!

And then I check other permissions too!

Come on! It’s just an eCommerce application!! Why would it need such permissions? Check what Flipkart has to say (from the app store description: re-produced verbatim from the play store description)

Permissions In addition to basic permissions, the Flipkart shopping app needs access to other functions on your device for it to support the above features –

• Device and App History: To detect critical crashes and recover the app state

• Identity: For native login functionality with your Google account

• Phone: Read call logs to check eligibility for Buy Now Pay Later option

• SMS: To auto-verify OTPs. We do not read existing messages

My suspicion grows and I decide to check the permissions of other eCommerce Mobile App – this time Amazon, and I’m surprised by the comparison. Amazon being one of the largest eCommerce companies in the world, their Indian version of app has over 1 crore downloads (26 lakh ratings) and , however, the Amazon India Mobile App requires very few permissions and if you analyze, they seem to be just! Check the below screenshot.

Then why Flipkart? Why??

Is it because of the latest pressure of increasing valuation of the company? Is it because Amazon has been thinking of a Flipkart buyout and you want to be owned by Wallmart? That’s the pressure that has forced Flipkart to tie up with MakeMyTrip to sell their offers on Flipkart, kind of aping the PayTM model?

Fine if you want to increase your valuation, but on the cost of unsuspecting customers? Eavesdropping on their privacy??

For the readers, here’s the complete list of permissions that the latest Flipkart Mobile App would want. Check for yourselves and if you are comfortable sharing such data for the sake of buying certain products, go for it. For me – I’m not comfortable and hence uninstalling it immediately!

Permissions that Flipkart seeks(Source: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flipkart.android):

This app has access to:

Identity find accounts on the device

read your own contact card

Contacts find accounts on the device

read your contacts

modify your contacts

Location approximate location (network-based)

precise location (GPS and network-based)

SMS read your text messages (SMS or MMS)

receive text messages (SMS)

send SMS messages

Phone read call log

read phone status and identity

Photos / Media / Files read the contents of your USB storage

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Storage read the contents of your USB storage

modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Camera take pictures and videos

Microphone record audio

Wi-Fi connection information view Wi-Fi connections

Device ID & call information read phone status and identity

SMS read your text messages (SMS or MMS)

receive text messages (SMS)

Phone read phone status and identity

SMS receive text messages (SMS)

Device & app history retrieve running apps

read sensitive log data

Identity find accounts on the device

Contacts find accounts on the device

Other read Home settings and shortcuts

write Home settings and shortcuts

receive data from Internet

view network connections

create accounts and set passwords

pair with Bluetooth devices

connect and disconnect from Wi-Fi

control flashlight

full network access

read sync settings

run at startup

draw over other apps

use accounts on the device

control vibration

prevent device from sleeping

toggle sync on and off

install shortcuts

uninstall shortcuts

read Google service configuration

view network connections

create accounts and set passwords

pair with Bluetooth devices

control flashlight

full network access

read sync settings

run at startup

use accounts on the device

control vibration

prevent device from sleeping

toggle sync on and off

install shortcuts

uninstall shortcuts

read Google service configuration

view network connections

create accounts and set passwords

control flashlight

full network access

read sync settings

use accounts on the device

control vibration

prevent device from sleeping

toggle sync on and off

install shortcuts

uninstall shortcuts

read Google service configuration

view network connections

control flashlight

full network access

use accounts on the device

prevent device from sleeping

read Google service configuration

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