Protect your privacy with this app

Whether it’s a bank pin or smartphone password, you never know who’s watching when you type sensitive information.

Now there’s a phone application designed to thwart prying eyes. Called PEK, short for Privacy Enhanced Keyboard, the app produces non-standard keyboards for touchscreen devices. It’s designed to throw people or cameras watching someone type in a password off the scent.

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When the user is typing non-sensitive information, like a text, the app displays a standard QWERTY keyboard. When the user prepares to type a password ,PEK shuffles the keys around so that anyone watching the user’s finger movements wouldn’t be able to infer the actual keys being pressed. The app generates a random keyboard every time.

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This also prevents someone from looking at the pattern of fingerprints left on a touchscreen to determine a password, the designers note. And it combats malicious software that monitors a smartphone’s orientation and touchscreen data to deduce a password.

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Staff

The staff of Advisor.ca have been covering news for financial advisors since 1998.