PARIS – French users of an Islamic prayer app accused of selling data that ended up with the US army are suing the company, said their lawyers yesterday.
Former subscribers to the Muslim Pro app, which claims to have 95 million users around the world, filed the complaint after media reports accused the firm of having shared its data with companies connected to the US army.
The suit, revealed by France’s RTL radio, accuses the company of data protection offences, abuse of trust, endangering other people’s lives and conspiracy to commit murder.
The case is due to be filed today.
It follows a report by the Vice media group last week about how the US army bought users’ geolocation data from a string of apps around the world.
They include the Muslim Pro app, which has a geolocation option that enables users to determine the hour of prayer and the direction of Mecca.
The company sold this data to a firm called X-Mode, which sold it on to subcontractors, and by extension, the army, said Vice.
US special forces could then use the data on overseas missions, the report said, speculating that it could be used for the extrajudicial executions of terror suspects by means of drone strikes.
A day after the report came out, Muslim Pro said it is ending all sharing of its data with other companies.
The company, which was founded by a French national who is based in Singapore, also said it has launched an internal investigation. – AFP, November 24, 2020
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