[HN Gopher] Clubhouse uploads all your contacts
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       Clubhouse uploads all your contacts
        
       Author : sleepyhead
       Score  : 105 points
       Date   : 2021-01-08 15:15 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | finger wrote:
       | I imagine this is not Clubhouse.io ?
       | 
       | Confusing when different products have the same name.
        
         | larsnystrom wrote:
         | I absolutely thought this was clubhouse.io until I had a closer
         | look at the screenshots. I have no idea what this other
         | clubhouse app is. Confusing indeed.
        
       | lights0123 wrote:
       | And so does every other social media platform. Signal does so
       | with hashes (https://support.signal.org/hc/en-
       | us/articles/360007061452-Do...), but there's so few phone numbers
       | that it would be trivial to brute force or rainbow table all the
       | possible values.
        
         | AlexandrB wrote:
         | I wish Signal didn't use phone numbers as identifiers. That's
         | the original sin of all these apps and the convenient excuse
         | for uploading contacts
        
         | beaudin wrote:
         | Public, the stock trading app does this as well. Same interface
         | (your contact has x friends) but it seems this is a growing,
         | and worrisome trend.
        
         | rio517 wrote:
         | I'm assuming signal is following best practice. How else could
         | one match contacts without uploading some contact data?
        
           | saagarjha wrote:
           | Signal's "best practice" for a while was to use special
           | hardware that relied trusting Intel in the best case but in
           | practice was also perpetually being broken into...
        
           | sleepyhead wrote:
           | There is no need to upload or match contacts in this case. It
           | is a required step for inviting a new user. The invite SMS is
           | even sent from the device, not by Clubhouse.
        
             | ljlolel wrote:
             | One of the recent versions sends it from Clubhouse servers
             | not the device.
        
             | rio517 wrote:
             | Oh! I see. I was thinking of matching users in your list
             | with those already on the platform. In this case, that
             | means N number of user already sent their contact list to
             | clubhouse and club house is keeping and using that data.
        
       | neom wrote:
       | I was extremely annoyed last week when my friend messaged me and
       | asked me if I was going to use clubhouse, I said no I don't think
       | anyone I know would be using it. She said, well.. you have 63
       | friends using it, I said... I don't have 63 friends! She then
       | proceeded to send me a screenshot with a list of her contacts not
       | on ClubHouse that shows how many of their contacts are on it. I
       | don't know why this bothered me so much, but for whatever reason
       | it did.
        
         | cmroanirgo wrote:
         | This is precisely why iOS and Android should never have allowed
         | an app direct access to our Contacts. Rather, everything from
         | the API should be anonymous hashes AND be different per
         | application. The OS should also have supplied a "Contact list
         | UI" that gave apps a unified way of displaying contacts without
         | giving away the keys to the kingdom.
         | 
         | Otherwise, once your contact list is uploaded, everyone's
         | privacy is violated.
        
       | hundchenkatze wrote:
       | The terseness of their permission request does not meet Apple's
       | review guidelines. It's almost identical to one of Apple's
       | unacceptable examples.
       | 
       | https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...
       | 
       | https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#5.1...
       | 
       | Is there a way to report the app to bring it to Apple's
       | attention?
        
         | saagarjha wrote:
         | Sadly, it doesn't seem so. The fact that there is no clear
         | place to do this is honestly quite ironic given that Apple
         | requires all third-party apps to have an easy way to report
         | rulebreaking content...
        
           | edualm wrote:
           | There is actually! I was told about it over the phone with an
           | App Review rep a few weeks ago. I didn't write it down
           | unfortunately, but I think it was appreview@apple.com -
           | googling for that e-mail address returns some results, so I
           | am pretty positive that was it.
        
             | hundchenkatze wrote:
             | Awesome! It seems that most of the references in search
             | results are around interactions between Apple and
             | developers. But it definitely looks like the best place to
             | send violations as well. Thank you!
        
             | nowherebeen wrote:
             | I just sent them an email. Other developers should too
             | because everyone should play by the same rules.
        
       | Nextgrid wrote:
       | A little known fact is that Uber also does this, or at least used
       | to. On iOS when you try to copy a link to follow your trip it
       | first asks for contacts permissions with a bullshit reason -
       | declining doesn't have any ill effects but obviously it's
       | designed to try and catch users off-guard or make them think it's
       | mandatory and I guess a lot of people do submit.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | I think there should be dark patterns and ... darkest patterns.
        
       | protomyth wrote:
       | It would actually be a neat UI to show the person's contacts
       | letting the person pick which one to try with a "match the hash"
       | function that shows the one way hash generated and does a "ping"
       | on the service to see if someone matches.
       | 
       | Won't happen, but would be a fun UI to do.
        
       | meekmockmook wrote:
       | Lol Big Tech spying on their own. Beautiful.
        
       | archibaldJ wrote:
       | This is not Clubhouse.io but joinClubhouse.com, an invite-only
       | zoom/gather.town alternative for organising events. I have a few
       | friends in San Francisco using it but doesn't look like it's
       | well-known outside the circle.
       | 
       | Think they've been growing a lot in the recent months and getting
       | more popular.
       | 
       | Curious what is the legal implication from a privacy perspective
       | if they are only uploading the hashes.
        
         | mtnygard wrote:
         | Thanks for clarifying that. I've got a generally good opinion
         | of clubhouse.io and was concerned.
        
       | sdfhbdf wrote:
       | Why is it against GDPR if somebody agreed to it and agreed to
       | their Privacy Policy [1]? I don't understand the claim in this
       | tweet exactly. I think some context is missing.
       | 
       | [1]: https://www.notion.so/Privacy-Policy-
       | cd4b415950204a46819478b...
        
         | tauntz wrote:
         | AFAIK the issue is that the service is pulling in PI of other
         | people without their consent.
         | 
         | You can not store my name/phone number etc without my consent -
         | even if you got that data from one of your user's contact list.
         | 
         | Please correct me if I'm wrong. IANAL.
        
         | secondcoming wrote:
         | If my number is in your phonebook, you cannot give consent to
         | Clubhouse to get that info on my behalf.
        
         | theodorton wrote:
         | I believe the "We need contacts permission" message is key
         | here. The message should include the purpose for what the
         | contact data will be used for when asking for consent.
         | 
         | > Specific - consent must relate to specific actions relating
         | to the data rather than for any purpose the business wants it.
         | For example, if the data is for a newsletter subscription, it
         | must say exactly that.
         | 
         | https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/consent/
        
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       (page generated 2021-01-08 23:02 UTC)