Privacy group seeks federal investigation of Jay-Z's <em>Magna Carta</em> app

Advocacy group believes Samsung failed to properly protect user privacy.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Electronic Privacy Information Center (or EPIC) has issued a complaint that asks the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Jay-Z’s Samsung-powered Magna Carta… Holy Grail app.

“Samsung failed to disclose material information about the privacy practices of the App, collected data unnecessary to the functioning of the Magna Carta App, deprived users of meaningful choice regarding the collection of their data, interfered with device functionality, and failed to implement reasonable data minimization procedures,” the group said in the complaint.

Unsurprisingly, Samsung disagrees, saying in a statement: “Any information obtained through the application download process was purely for customer verification purposes, app functionality purposes, and for marketing communications, but only if the customer requests to receive those marketing communications. Samsung is in no way inappropriately using or selling any information obtained from users through the download process.”

According to the filing, the app accessed a slew of information, including data about users’ location, telephone numbers dialed, networks and other applications on the phone; rapper Killer Mike tweeted as much when the album-app was released.

It is unclear if the FTC will take up the complaint, but lawyers reached by the newspaper find it unlikely. Despite being downloaded over a million times, the app saw numerous problems, including being cloned and redistributed by hackers. Still, Jay-Z still notched his first #1 record in the UK and was instantly certified platinum in a move that establishes #newrules for the industry.

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