Hey, SwiftKey, are you okay?
According to some users, the latest update of the app backfired a week later when the new emoji-predicting keyboard started making some strange suggestions.
It appears as if the app mixed some jars and started using user data as suggestions sent to complete strangers. The suggestions were pertaining to names, email accounts, and phone numbers – all of which is very sensitive information.
Acquired by Microsoft for $250 million earlier in 2016, SwiftKey is an app which uses artificial intelligence to make useful suggestions based on the user’s typing habits.
Machine learning is involved in performing this task so SwiftKey can understand the patterns of communication between users; the unique words or phrases are then stored in a database. The app, which is available on both Android and iOS, is considered one of the best apps that wield both machine learning and AI.
In order to amplify its database and make sure it makes accurate suggestions, SwiftKey needs to process quite a lot of personal information, including previous texts, emails, and recurring phrases and names.
What is more, the app has been equipped with a sync tool that allows users to access their predictive data across various devices that use the same account. However, a glitch in this synchronization feature has allowed a few users to inadvertently gain access to information belonging to others.
Thankfully, the strangers quickly let each other know of the error, which helped Microsoft to catch wind of the problem. One SwiftKey user received an email from a stranger who warned them their details were compromised.
Both his private and work email addresses had been predicted as suggestions on a brand new phone; the anonymous source said he found a large number of contacts in his SwiftKey alphabet that he reported to their owners.
According to SwiftKey, the problem was generated by a bug in the sync feature, so the company swiftly switched it off the glitch is fixed. Other than that, SwiftKey guarantees the app is secure, given that the number of those affected by the bug was insignificant.
“We take users’ privacy and security very seriously,” SwiftKey wrote in a recent blog post.
