Data-Hungry: Official Trump 2020 Election App Collects User Data of Voters
Shine Li Jun 23, 2020 07:50
US president Donald Trump’s campaign app “Official Trump 2020 App” raised a lot of skepticism, as it has been uncovered that the election app collected mast amounts of sensitive information on his voters.
US President Donald Trump’s campaign app “Official Trump 2020 App” raised a lot of skepticism, as it has been uncovered that the election app has collected massive amounts of sensitive information on his voters.
Trump is supposed to run against Joe Biden in the presidential election of 2020, and as part of his campaign, his campaign staff created an app that collects information on each user. According to MIT Technology Review, Trump’s app collects far more information on its users than the one created by Joe Biden, his presidential rival.
Official Trump 2020 App
Official Trump 2020 App collects sensitive personal details such as Device ID, call information, and Bluetooth pairing. The app also endorses Trump’s campaign strategy, which seeks to collect the cellphone number of each voter. This means that the Official Trump 2020 App makes considerable permission requests that enable its access to a user’s location, phone identity, and even control over the handset’s Bluetooth function. Trump draws his inspiration for creating his app from India’s very own political figure, Narendra Modi.
At the time of writing, the Official Trump 2020 App has been downloaded approximately 780,000 times.
Propaganda or Facts?
According to MIT Technology Review, the articles, messages, and announcements that run on Trump’s personalized app have no named authors. They also mainly use sources such as government press releases and tweets from Trump’s own supporters and White House staff as fact check standards.
Cambridge Analytica Dreams of Trumping the Rival
In 2016, the Cambridge Analytica Scandal broke out: data from 87 million Facebook users were collected through a personality quiz. Cambridge Analytica was also reported to be involved in Trump’s electoral campaign.
Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of a digital intelligence startup, stated in an interview that blockchain technology could be the ultimate solution in addressing data protection issues.
She stated, “In my opinion, it’s really blockchain tech and blockchain entrepreneurs that are going to solve a lot of problems of the data protection crisis.”
Image source: Shutterstock
