CHANDLER — Chandler-based Privoro has developed a product that may give people a little more privacy in a world where digital devices allow others to listen, watch and track their every move.
The company has designed a privacy guard for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S that the company’s CEO said could fend off anyone interested in your personal world – conversations with your boss, the gas station you frequent most often, even how you look through the high-definition camera.
The company joins dozens of others geared at protecting users’ privacy in an age of growing cybersecurity threats.
Privoro’s privacy guard consists of two parts.
A phone case helps prevent eavesdropping by jamming the supersensitive microphones. The case also features a hood that can physically block the front and rear view of the camera without sacrificing its functions, CEO and founder Mike Fong said.
The second part is a shield that covers the phone and the case. The technology forms an “impenetrable Faraday cage around your phone” to stop location tracking, according to Privoro website.
The company is accepting pre-orders online for $999. And Privoro officials are developing a similar version for iMac.
“Most people say I’ve got nothing to hide, what do I care? But the reality is you have everything to protect,” Fong said. “Would you give (away) your email password, password to all your social media accounts, your bank account information, account numbers and logins?”
Jamie Winterton, director of Strategic Research Initiatives for Arizona State University’s Global Security Initiative and cyber security expert, agreed.
“If there isn’t any privacy, then we are inherently insecure,” she said. “If everybody knows everything about you then there’s a lot of ways that you personally can be exploited through technique called social engineering.”