Sarahah – the viral app is getting access to your contact list but why?

One of the biggest problems with social media sites is the tendency of such platforms to make anything go viral. Anything that is attractive and eye-catching gets shared irrespective of its authenticity or implications. There have been videos in recent years that got so viral that people had to isolate themselves to protect themselves from embarrassment. While social media is a strong tool that enables everyone to voice their opinions and bring important social issues to the surface of mainstream media, these sites also promote and foster the circulation of content that is inappropriate and a potential danger to cyber-security. Sarahah is one of the recent applications that has stirred a new controversy regarding security breaches.

An application called Sarahah has been the talk of the Facebook lately where you allow people to say something about you by remaining anonymous so their message is sent but their identity remains unknown. This application has led a flood of posts on Facebook as well as Instagram where people are sharing their usernames so that their friends and other people can write a message for them without expressing their names.

Surprisingly, the app has already been downloaded more than 10 million times from the Android Play Store. The problem with this application is that when a user installs this app, Sarahah requires access to contacts but till now, the application’s interface did not show where it needed contacts.

When a cybersecurity firm accused the app of being fraudulent and aimed at unethically capturing the private information without users’ knowledge.

Zain Alabdin is the creator of Sarahah and clarified the concerns regarding accessibility to contact lists of users.

The creator of Sarahah further clarified that the app does not have a “Find Friends” option workable due to technical glitches which will be operational once the next update is launched. Though the option isn’t workable as of now but, the app is taking the information from contact lists since the launch of its first version.

Security analysts have also raised questions regarding the data privacy protocols of Google Play Store as it allows any app to get access to the private domains of people ranging from contacts to camera services even when the app doesn’t need certain peripherals.