And the Director of Engineering at Tesla is none other than Charles Mwangi.

https://twitter.com/ccthuo?lang=en

https://www.kenyans.co.k...can-based-company-tesla

“All your personal information is valuable.

Companies understand this and want to manipulate you.

Governments too,” Dennis Makori, the chief executive of OnPhone Group says.

“Mobile devices are perfect targets for this sort of surveillance because they are equipped with sensors that can monitor the user at all times.

Technology companies know their apps are continuously collecting data through these sensors but few are open about it,” he says.

Every smart phone has at least one, a gyroscope, a magnetometer, an accelerometer, up to four microphones a barometer, two cameras, a light sensor, a thermometer and humidity sensor.

They are not permission protected which means the phone’s user doesn’t have to give a newly installed app permission to access those sensors.

As a result, malicious companies can plant spywares on innocently looking apps in order to mine data about you.

In November last year Google identified a new malware dubbed Tizi spyware which planted 20 different apps that targeted devices in African countries, specifically Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya.

The apps which have since been banned from Google Play Store could record calls on Watsapp, send and receive messages, access contacts, photos and Wifi keys.

They could also recording audio and take pictures without displaying the image on the device’s screen.

According to a statement from Google 1,200 devices had been infected with the Tizi malware.

“If a Tizi app is unable to take control of a device because the vulnerabilities it tries to use are all patched, it will still attempt to perform some actions through the high level of permissions it asks the user to grant to it, mainly around reading and sending SMS messages and monitoring, redirecting, and preventing outgoing phone calls,” said the company in a statement.