You can not select more than 25 topics
Topics must start with a letter or number, can include dashes ('-') and can be up to 35 characters long.
36 lines
1.7 KiB
36 lines
1.7 KiB
5 years ago
|
+++
|
||
|
|
title = "Things I Learnt The Hard Way - Think About The Users"
|
||
|
|
date = 2019-07-17
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
[taxonomies]
|
||
|
|
tags = ["en-au", "books", "things i learnt", "privacy"]
|
||
|
|
+++
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
Think how the data you're collecting from your users will be used -- this is
|
||
|
|
more prevalent on these days, where "privacy" is a premium.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
<!-- more -->
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
I once had a discussion with a CTO about collecting the user IMEI on our
|
||
|
|
mobile app. Basically, there was no use case for capturing that information
|
||
|
|
yet but, as he put at the time, "We may want to know if one user uses two
|
||
|
|
phones, or if two users use the same phone". I raised the fact that we didn't
|
||
|
|
need this information and, besides that, it felt like we were invading the
|
||
|
|
users privacy. He still decided to go ahead. My answer: "I'll do it, but I
|
||
|
|
want to point that I'm not happy with it."
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
In the end, the store blocked the app... because we were capturing the IMEI.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
But there are cases and cases. If you really _really_ need to capture user
|
||
|
|
information, be sure to protect it against unauthorized use, be it by external
|
||
|
|
forces (someone found a way to attack your data) or internal (some disgruntled
|
||
|
|
colleague decided to take the data from your users with them).
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
And be sure, there _will_ be a leak at some point, it's just a matter of time.
|
||
|
|
If you can, the best way to protect your users data is to never capture it.
|
||
|
|
When a flaw on your system is found or when some colleague leaves the company
|
||
|
|
in bad terms, there will be no data to expose to the world, anyway. You can't
|
||
|
|
be more secure than this.
|
||
|
|
|
||
|
|
{{ chapters(prev_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/debuggers", prev_chapter_title="Debuggers Are Overrated", next_chapter_link="/books/things-i-learnt/integration-tests", next_chapter_title="Unit Tests Are Good, Integration Tests Are Gooder") }}
|