CSE got a plug from one of its alumni and former research scientist in an article about how most apps don't care about privacy. CSE alumnus Yuvraj Agarwal (Ph.D. '09) left UC San Diego in 2013 to be an assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he founded that university's Systems Networking and Energy Efficiency Lab. But when interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for a piece on privacy and apps, Agarwal noted that his team at UCSD had developed an app called Protect My Privacy in 2012, at a time when Apple had not yet offered its AppOpps rival. "Protect My Privacy sends user notifications when an app attempts to access location data, contacts or other information with the phone," noted Agarwal (pictured at UCSD demonstrating the app). Protect My Privacy, however, goes beyond what AppOpps can do, by intercepting communication between the app and the phone before any information is lost.
On the downside, Protect My Privacy can only work on iPhones that have been modified to allow customization, or that have been 'jailbroken.' Even so, Agarwal confirmed that an iOS 8 version of Protect My Privacy was released in late March, and since its launch, the app has been downloaded more than 200,000 times. However, as people load more and more apps on their smartphones, they can generated potentially hundreds of alerts per day that may require the user to say yes or no to a request for information. Agarwal is quoted admitting that, "it can get overwhelming pretty quickly."