Google Allo, the new “smart” chat app launched on Wednesday, is ‘dangerous’ and should be avoided, according to whistleblower Edward Snowden, because it will “record every message you ever send and make it available to police upon request.”
What is #Allo? A Google app that records every message you ever send and makes it available to police upon request. https://t.co/EdPRC0G7Py
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016
As RT reports, Allo, designed to unseat chat pack leader WhatsApp, promises to deliver quick conversations with features like; “Smart Reply” that can guess your answers and respond to messages with just the tap of a button, and “Google Assistant”, which answers your questions and helps you search for things directly in your chat.
How does Allo plan on predicting your every word and witty emoji, you ask? “The more you use it, the more it improves over time,” which basically means they’ll collect and store as much of your data as possible and then use artificial intelligence to guess your replies.
Thinking about #Allo? Last year, our secret court approved 100% of requests for surveillance. They would cover Allo. https://t.co/oYtc3Pu8tx
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016
However, the efficiency of time-saving typing may end up costing customers their already compromised privacy.
When Google first announced the introduction of Allo earlier this year they, too, had planned end-to-end-encryption in “Incognito Mode” and assured they would only store messages transiently, rather than indefinitely.
However, it now appears that Google won’t be doing that after all. Wednesday’s announcement revealed Google plans to store all conversations that aren’t specifically started in “incognito mode” by default.
Free for download today: Google Mail, Google Maps, and Google Surveillance. That’s #Allo. Don’t use Allo. https://t.co/EdPRC0G7Py
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016
As Snowden pointed out, last year every single one of the NSA and FBI’s 1,457 surveillance requests was granted by the US foreign intelligence surveillance court… and Allo’s stored data (i.e. your data) will be fair game too.
In contrast, all of WhatsApp’s chats are encrypted and unreadable – although they did announce last month that they will now be sharing your contacts and who you talk to with Facebook.
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