QR Scanner (Privacy Friendly)

QR Codes turn out to be increasingly important. In some areas they have even replaced the standard barcode. A QR Code is ready to store up to seven thousand characters and due to this fact is qualified for more complex content, e.g. vCards. Hence nowadays QR Codes can nowadays be discovered on nearly each commercial poster and animate the person to scan it together with his smartphone. Thus, it's not needed take a hand written note, it is enough to scan the QR Code. Correspondingly, there are already many QR Code scanner apps available in the Google Play Store. It belongs to the Privacy Friendly Apps group developed by the research group SECUSO at Technische Universität Darmstadt. More information can be discovered an secuso.org/pfa

Our Privacy Friendly QR Scanner App differs with respect to two features:

1. The Privacy Friendly QR Scanner App only requires the minimum quantity of permissions, namely:

• In category Camera/Microphone: Camera

The digicam is used to scan QR Code.

• In class Other: Vibrate and Flashlight

The vibration is used to provide feedback if the scan was successful. The flashlight is used to help the digital camera in reading the QR Code efficiently in dangerous lighting situations.

Most of the QR Code scanner apps available in the Google Play Store want several permissions on prime of the ones wanted: e.g. studying contacts or your name log and retrieving information from the Internet. Most of those necessities are not essential for the functionality they really are supposed to offer.

2. The Privacy Friendly QR Scanner App supports its customers in detecting malicious hyperlinks: QR Codes provide new prospects for an attacker, as QR Codes can include malicious links, i.e. links to phishing webpages or webpages from which malware would automatically be downloaded. Therefore it could be very important carefully verify the link earlier than accessing the corresponding webpage. Since it is tough for the person to spot malicious hyperlinks, the Privacy friendly QR Scanner App helps the consumer by highlighting the area (e.g. in that case for https://www.secuso.org, secuso.org could be highlighted). To avoid not checking the link and particularly the highlighted domain carefully, the app offers details about potential fraud and its customers need to substantiate that they checked the hyperlink and it is trustworthy. Note, the data shown after scanning an URL based mostly QR Code isn't personalized for every URL. Hence, it must be thought of as an recommendation for the user how to behave in general.

Similar to different out there QR Code scanning apps, the Privacy Friendly QR Scanner App helps the next codecs:

• text

• product codes

• phone number

• sms

• e-mail address

• email

• contact information (e.g. vCards)

• URL

• WiFi (limited: can not connect to network automatically)

Bar codes are also supported.