No more privacy with Android smartphones

The change means that those with smartphones using Android 4.4.2, the version of the operating system’s most popular mobile devices in the world presented this week, should provide access to your personal information to use certain applications.

Google Inc experimental tool eliminated the privacy of your Android software, a feature that allowed users to prevent applications collect personal information such as phonebook data and mobile locations.

A company spokesman said the tool was accidentally included in Android 4.3, the version released last summer.

“We suspect this explanation and we do not in any way justify the fact of removing the property rather than better,” said Peter Eckersley, technology projects director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The website of the digital rights organization was the first to publish the change through a blog on Friday.

Android users who want to maintain privacy controls without upgrading your OS to version 4.4.2 may be vulnerable to security risks, Eckersley said.

“For now, users will have to choose between privacy or security of Android devices, but not both,” he said.