The Facebook app that was created by Vonvon has raised security and privacy concerns among the public. (Photo : Reuters)
The Facebook app that was created by Vonvon has been used by millions of users and has raised security and privacy concerns among the public.
More than 18 million Facebook users have tried the "What Are Your Most Used Words on Facebook" app that was created by the South Korean company.
As the Vonvon app became viral on Facebook, the VPN company Comparitech began to warn people that the app has a lot of privacy issues, according to Forbes.
The "What Are Your Most Used Words on Facebook" app works by using personal data on Facebook to release a word cloud that supposedly displays the words most used by people on the social media site.
However, the Vonvon app first has to ask for permission to record a user's IP address, age, profile picture, posts, friends list, birthday, education history, likes, photos and even the posts which a user is tagged in. The dilemma is that all of the data could be easily stored by the South Korean company's servers regardless of the location of the user.
Alarmingly, one of the statements included in the privacy policy of the Facebook app is that all of the impersonal information collected by Vonvon could be used even after the user has decided to quit using the app.
While the statement clarifies that Vonvon would only use the data for statistical, analytical purposes, the company also noted that even personal information would still be collected on the servers.
To provide some clarification regarding the privacy concerns, Vonvon CEO and founder Jonghwa Kim explained the purpose of the app, according to Venture Beat.
According to Kim, Vonvon only collects personal data to provide the results that are displayed through a word cloud. The CEO also mentioned that the data of Facebook users are never sent directly to any server owned by Vonvon since the analysis only makes use of the web browser being utilized to open the app.
Moreover, Kim reassured users that the personal information being analyzed would never be sold to any other company since the data are never collected by Vonvon anyway.
Finally, the Vonvon CEO said that the privacy policy being questioned was taken out of context.
