Android phones have many good qualities, but privacy protection and personal data security aren’t high on the list. Enter a new app that enables privacy mode.

Researchers at North Carolina State University tackled the emerging concerns about user-data privacy protection in Android smartphones. To combat leaking data, prevent apps from sharing data that users would prefer they didn’t, and to prevent data loss if an app is maliciously searching for info, a team under Dr. Xuxian Jiang put together has created a new mode for Android devices that adds in a user-controlled privacy interface.

The system is called Taming Information-Stealing Smartphone Applications (TISSA), and its primary task is to install customizable privacy settings for the level of information that each app can access and/or share. The settings can be tweaked dynamically, and could be adjusted each time you run an app if you so choose. Essentially, it lets you switch between “trusted,” “anonymized,” “bogus,” and “empty”–apps that are trusted are allowed free reign, apps that are anonymized are sent general information but barred from accessing “real” personal data, and “bogus” apps get sent fake data. The highest setting ,”empty,” merely tells apps that request personal data that is does not exist or is unavailable.

via New App To Fix Android’s Privacy And Data-Security Holes Coming Soon | Fast Company.