
Marco Polo is less a video call app and more a video sharing app. There are no real-time calls. Instead, users record and share videos (or texts or audio-only recordings)--called Polos--with people in their contacts. Record a video of you dancing with your dog. Upload it and leave it for your friend or family group. They'll hop on and view it when they have a moment and reply with a video of their own. Call, respond, Marco, Polo. Get it? Marco Polo has been around since 2014. Thanks to pandemic growth, some enthusiastic celebrity users like P!nk, Amy Poehler, and Ice T, and apparently the US state of Utah (which one report said has the app's biggest user base, who knew?), Marco Polo now has over ten million users worldwide.
Que pourrait-il se passer en cas de problème ?
Marco Polo seems to do an OK job protecting your privacy. It uses encryption in transit and at rest. It does not use stronger end-to-end encryption because they say they want to be able to retrieve those precious memories of yours stored on their servers if you happen to lose your phone. One thing that does worry us a little is how Marco Polo handles the deletion of those precious Polo videos. If you chose to delete your account, remember to delete all your Polos first, as it appears users aren’t able to delete these videos after you delete your account. And any Polos you don’t delete can remain accessible to other users. What's the worst that could happen? Well, we’d hate for that super embarrassing Polo you sent that one drunken night to remain available to dig up even after you delete your Marco Polo account. No one needs that stuff hanging around the internet forever.
Ce produit peut-il m’espionner ?
Caméra
Appareil : Ne s’applique pas
Application : Oui
Microphone
Appareil : Ne s’applique pas
Application : Oui
Piste la géolocalisation
Appareil : Ne s’applique pas
Application : Oui
Que peut-on utiliser pour s’inscrire ?
Adresse e-mail
Non
Téléphone
Oui
Compte tiers
Non
Quelles données l’entreprise collecte-t-elle ?
Personnelles
Name, photo, mobile number, email, birth day and/or birth month, voice from video calls
Corporelles
Sociales
Contacts, the content you create, including videos (or “Polos”), photos, short video clips you share with selected contacts (or “Scrapbook moments”), and text messages.
Comment l’entreprise utilise-t-elle les données ?
Comment pouvez-vous contrôler vos données ?
Quel est l’historique de l’entreprise en matière de protection des données des utilisateurs et utilisatrices ?
In the past, Marco Polo sent text message invitations from your phone to your top contacts without explicit permission. These invitations used your nickname from their contact list, thus personalising a message like "Hi bunny! Please download Marco Polo app, so that I can send you a video!"
Ce produit peut-il être utilisé hors connexion ?
Informations relatives à la vie privée accessibles et compréhensibles ?
The privacy policy is written using overly abstract language, and it seems to hide the app's weaknesses behind legalese clauses.
Liens vers les informations concernant la vie privée
Ce produit respecte-t-il nos critères élémentaires de sécurité ?
Chiffrement
No end-to-end encryption, but encryption at rest and in transit.
Mot de passe robuste
There is no password requirement in Marco Polo. To sign up, an SMS authentication is used.
Mises à jour de sécurité
Marco Polo is updated weekly, and each update is annotated with what is new.
Gestion des vulnérabilités
Vulnerabilities can be reported here https://www.marcopolo.me/vulnerability-policy/
Politique de confidentialité
Cette IA est-elle non digne de confiance ?
Quel genre de décisions l’IA prend-elle à votre sujet ou pour vous ?
L’entreprise est-elle transparente sur le fonctionnement de l’IA ?
Les fonctionnalités de l’IA peuvent-elles être contrôlées par l’utilisateur ou l’utilisatrice ?
Pour aller plus loin
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Marco Polo has been around for years, but it’s blowing up amid the pandemicThe Verge
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Data Breach of the Week — Marco PoloAlly
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Someone knows something about this Marco Polo app that we don’tTechCrunch
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