I recently had to install the Viber app on my smartphone to get something from someone who did not have one of my conversation apps.
For those familiar with the application, the process is "simple". You give your mobile number, a verification is done with one message, and immediately after that the Viber application asks to have access in your contacts.
Here all good.
Over the past few years, Viber appears to have modified the company's privacy policy to increase confidence of its users.
However, unlike other apps that only scan your contacts, Viber continues to scan and store the phone numbers of your contacts on its servers.
This may not all concern them, but I personally worried when I noticed the specific behavior of the company.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that the EFF Foundation does not mention the implementation at all Surveillance Self-Defense Guide.
Mention also that in the first version of Secure Messaging Scorecard (έχει λήξει, αλλά υπάρχει ακόμα για το αρχείο) η εφαρμογή Viber είναι μια από τις χειρότερες στην ασφάλεια. Ο νέος ενημερωμένος guide EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense doesn't mention it at all.
How can you see that Viber stores your contacts on the servers it uses?
Very simple: Uninstall the application from your mobile device. Removing the application will also not remove your phone number from the contacts of other application users. Your friends will continue to see you in Viber's contacts, and they will be able to send you messages, although the app reports that the message was not delivered.
This practically means that your number continues to exist on the company's servers even after removing the app from your mobile device.
Let's also look at the privacy policy:
We can share the information we collect about you with the Viber family, including our parent company, Rakuten Inc., and its affiliates and affiliates (To learn more about Rakuten Inc. follow this link: http://global.rakuten.com/corp/about/).
Rakuten Marketing;
Update: As you'll see in the comments below, the app has a setting to disable the account before removing it from the mobile device.
I add "Update" because during my experimentation with the application I did not notice the above mode.
However, the privacy policy remains the same.
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The article is inaccurate and misleading. Uninstalling the application does not mean removing the account, as it works like any other application with an account (eg Facebook, LinkdIn etc.)
To unsubscribe from Viber, there is the option in the general settings "Deactivate Account".
It is good to look better before we publish such articles.
Remember that we must disable an account in such services. Eg you switch off the Facebook app but you are still in the service and can find you.