Official La Liga App Caught Spying on Users to Detect Illegal Match Broadcasts

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La Liga, the official app of the Spanish football league, has been caught snooping on Android users by tracking their GPS location and listening to their surroundings with the built-in microphone.

The purpose? To detect illegal match broadcasts and prevent those without a license from making money with La Liga matches.

As weird as this may sound, the surveillance campaign, which the league swears was introduced on June 8, spies on users exclusively during match times in an attempt to detect whether locations like bars broadcast games without a license.

In order to do so, upon installation, the application requires access to the microphone, a permission that it wouldn’t otherwise need because its purpose is to offer goal alerts, news, schedules, and scores of Spanish football games. But by receiving access to the microphone, it can activate the snitching and listen to users’ surroundings during match timetables.

Necessary evil

If something illega... (read more)

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