If you’re a big tech company in 2019, it’s in your best interest to know as much about your customers as possible.
A solid assessment of your demographics can pay off with high revenue, repeat business, and finely-tuned products and services.
That’s why, despite concerns from users and regulators, technology platforms go out of their way to collect data about you and your everyday habits.
Well, despite how counterintuitive it may sound, Netflix was revealed to have been tracking and harvesting activity data in its application — showing that even the most unsuspecting platforms are just as data-hungry as their competitors.
Naturally, Netflix claims there are legitimate reasons behind its subtle data collection — but why on Earth would it be relevant for a digital movie distributor to know what you’re doing and where you’re going? We have the answers, as well as the steps you can take to keep prying eyes out of your digital life.
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The discovery came about when a security researcher on Twitter reported that his Netflix app had accessed this information without alerting him — something the application has never done before. He was then able to verify that physical activity data was being accessed under the application’s privacy settings.
In order to know if your Netflix account is part of the company’s “test group,” you’ll need to navigate to your app permissions. Here, you’ll not only be able to see if Netflix has been tracking your activity, but you can also stop the app from doing so.
To change app permissions settings, open the Settings app on your Android device, tap Apps or Application Manager (it can be either one depending on your device), and select the Netflix app. On the next screen, tap Permissions and select Physical activity permission. Here, you can completely disable the feature and restore your privacy when watching Netflix.