They advise to uninstall Chrome from your Android device: The accelerometer would be used by the app to steal information

The risks of downloading applications on our mobile phones are often based on the permissions that we grant them to access different elements of it. Such as contact list, camera, microphone, etc. Now, a security expert has given a worrying alert about Google Chrome and openly recommended uninstalling the browser app in its version of Android.

This is Tommy Mysk, a prominent cybersecurity specialist who recently revealed one of his most disturbing discoveries to Forbes.

According to Mysk, the Android application of the well-known Google Chrome browser can compromise the privacy of any user just by having it installed on the phone.

In his analysis, Mysk found that Google can access specific user data through the accelerometer since it remains active for any web page that is visited through the browser.

What is an accelerometer?

The accelerometer is a motion sensor that almost all modern phones have and is widely used in video games and camera applications. It is also known as a pedometer.

Although it is hard to believe, this accelerometer would be able to provide data such as the location, the user’s tastes, their lifestyle, and even their health. “This motion sensor is accessible to all websites on Android / Chrome by default, as opposed to Safari for iOS,” Mysk noted.

“The way Android handles the accelerometer is much worse than Facebook. Applications can even read it in the background. My team implemented a pedometer feature in our app. It counted the steps even if the application was not running at all. Because logic was a background service that ran all the time,” he added.

What data can the accelerometer collect?

Forbes points out that, in this way, Google can even know the number of steps people take, the places they frequent, physical activity and health, heart rate, and even the means of transport used on a day-to-day basis.

There’s a solution?

Unfortunately, Mysk points out that there is no practical way to block all accelerometer access to Google Chrome and that the safest thing to do is to uninstall the application from any Android phone. Meanwhile, the amount of data collected can be reduced by disabling the option in Settings> Site settings> Motion sensors. The bad news? You have to constantly check it because web pages can reactivate it automatically and even do it in the background.