Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail app accesses “vast amount” of users' data

Hip-hop star-come-Renaissance man, Jay-Z wants you to know that he uses his phone to text his close friend Barack Obama. This open admission and “breach of national security,” in his words, is perhaps only fair, given that the smartphone app for his new album Magna Carta Holy Grail has been accused of demanding access to a “vast amount” of users’ data.

Both Billboard and the Center for Democracy and Technology have reported that the hip hop mogul’s deal with mobile giant Samsung, which allowed smartphone owners to download the record for free 72 hours before its commercial release, paved the way for the company to ask permission to “modify or delete USB storage, prevent the phone from sleeping, gain access to location data, obtain full network access, and read the phone’s status and identity.”

Use of the app was already fraught for some, as they experienced problems downloading the album, but others, including Killer Mike, didn’t even get that far. The Atlanta-born rapper, evidently unimpressed, tweeted the following screenshot when asked by the app for its required permissions:

I read this and……..”Naw I’m cool” pic.twitter.com/x8fXPG1tvC

— Killer Mike (@KillerMikeGTO) July 2, 2013

While the ostensible purpose of such permissions and harvesting of data would be to ensure the app’s proper functioning and to feed back into Samsung’s marketing strategies, CDT highlighted the obfuscatory contractual terms and conditions that would potentially allow users’ information to be shared amongst corporate partners, professional advisers, and, if required by law, government departments.

Read our review of Magna Carta Holy Grail here.