Viral selfie app Meitu causes privacy concerns over many permissions

If you don’t know what Meitu is — although you’ve probably already seen heaps of Anime-ified celebrities popping up in your social feeds over the last couple of days — it is an immensely popular Chinese selfie app that is now causing security concerns over the permissions it needs before you install it.

Meitu has been around for quite a while in its home country, but only recently gained traction in the rest of the world after adding anime styles to its roster of selfie filters. This kicked of a viral trend of people turning themselves into anime characters on Facebook and Instagram, but it wasn’t too long before social media were flooded with photos of celebrities and politicians also given the Sailor Moon treatment.

Unfortunately, it seems like the hilarity of turning Donald Trump into a K-Pop star comes at an unfair price. Security-conscious people have been poking about Meitu’s internals, and have allegedly stumbled upon some sketchy lines of code. Furthermore, the Android version of the app asks for a silly amount of permissions that should worry even the most nonchalant of yes-men. Although every selfie app needs access to your camera and photo gallery, Meitu asks for pretty much every permission in the book – to check on running apps, your current location, read and modify the contents of your USB storage, see your device’s unique identification numbers (IMSIs), access call information, wifi connections, and more.