Audacity, the well-known open-source audio-editing software, has been called spyware in a report, with privacy policy changes revealing the tool is co

Audacity 3.0 called spyware over data collection changes by new owner

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2021-07-05 10:00:06

Audacity, the well-known open-source audio-editing software, has been called spyware in a report, with privacy policy changes revealing the tool is collecting data on its users and sharing it with other firms, as well as sending the data to Russia.

Audacity was acquired by Muse Group in May, a company that also controls Ultimate Guitar, MuseScore, and Tonebridge. Since the purchase of Audacity, changes have been discovered in online support documents indicating that it is being used to perform data collection on its users.

The privacy policy page for Audacity was updated on June 2, reports Fosspost, with some additions relating to the collection of personal data. Specifically, that the app collects a variety of details relating to the users Mac.

The list of data includes the operating system and version, the user's country based on their IP address, non-fatal error codes and messages, crash reports, and the processor in use. Under data collected "for legal enforcement," the software collects "data necessary for law enforcement, litigation, and authorities' requests (if any)," though no specifically what data is collected in such cases.