Another popular Muslim prayer smartphone application are tracking the location of its users and selling data that ends up in the hands of the US government, said a media report.
Salaat First, an app that reminds Muslims when to pray, was recording and selling location data of its users, according to Motherboard, an online magazine owned by American-Canadian Vice Media group.
New investigation has bought to light details about the prayer app Salaat First which has been selling data to firms linked with the FBI and other US agencies.#muslim #muslimapp #prayerapp pic.twitter.com/VtDP2tijVH
— Islam Channel (@Islamchannel) January 12, 2021
The company collecting the location data is a French firm called Predicio, which has been linked to a supply chain of data involving a US government contractor that has worked with a number of US agencies.
Some of the agencies the contractor has worked with included Customs and Border Protection – the largest federal law enforcement agency of the US’ Department of Homeland Security – Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
We cannot say for certain if this data ultimately made its way to the US government, but it was sold to companies who have worked with US government. Leaked data set obtained by @josephfcox shows extremely detailed locations of users over time, including near mosques
— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) January 11, 2021
This is disgusting! It’s becoming increasingly clear that we now need to push for legislation prohibiting government agencies from purchasing user data that would otherwise require a warrant.
— zaynab-mahmood (@zaynabmahmood19) January 11, 2021
Salaat First, which has been downloaded more than 10 million times on Android, can potentially track its Muslim users’ location that include places of worship.
Last November, it was reported that Muslim Pro, another smartphone application which was downloaded over 98 million times, gathered user location data and sold it to the US military
Muslims can’t even pray without Being spied on. First Muslim pro, now Salaat First, what’s next? We Can’t trust none of these apps. https://t.co/4vwOAwxygW
— Hooyo Anisa (@hooyoanisa) January 11, 2021