It's the hottest selfie app of the moment but it has been discovered, unfortunately, that it puts the privacy of those who use it at risk
Who would have thought it. Meitu, the application that transforms photographed subjects into characters from a Japanese comic book, is in the eye of the cilone. The application made in China is accused of asking for access to a huge amount of data, many unjustified, to those who install it.
Meitu, after having conquered China, its country of origin, is also depopulating in the West. It is an excellent photo editing tool with an infinite number of filters and functions to completely change the features of the subjects immortalized. It is therefore normal that an application of this type asks - at the time of setup - to be able to access the camera and the image section of the smartphone. It is a bit less so if it demands to know other information that is not strictly related to its function. Not everyone pays attention to the requests of an app during installation and immediately press "accept", there are those who have wondered why.
Meitu: the problem of requests
(Taken from YouTube)
Let's find out, then too, what are these much disputed requests of Meitu. The program asks, at least on Android, for permission to access six different types of information (which encapsulate many more). First, access to the Camera and the Photos/Media/Files section, and so far nothing strange. You also pass the Location prompt so it can add data about where the photo was taken. But why would it want to display "one or more pieces of information regarding the activity that occurred on the phone, what apps are running, browsing app history and bookmarks"? Or get data "about Wi-Fi networks, detect whether WiFi is enabled and the names of connected WiFi devices"? Or even "device ID and call data"? True, the criticism is more than justified. It's just too bad that Meitu was really a beautiful application.