iPhone Snooping Fiasco

November 2009

Backdoor in top iPhone games stole user data, suit claims. A maker of some of the most popular games for the iPhone has been surreptitiously collecting users’ cell numbers without their permission, according to a federal lawsuit filed on November 4. The complaint claims best-selling games made by Storm8 contained secret code that bypassed safeguards built into the iPhone to prevent the unauthorized snooping of user information. The Redwood City, California, company, which claims its games have been downloaded more than 20 million times, has no need to collect the numbers. “Nonetheless, Storm8 makes use of the ‘backdoor’ method to access, collect, and transmit the wireless phone numbers of the iPhones on which its games are installed,” states the complaint, which was filed in US District Court in Northern California. “Storm8 does so or has done so in all of its games.”