Apps like 'Hip' are used to hide content like photos, videos and documents on a personal device, and are becoming more popular among youth, says a social media expert.--PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Social media expert Madison Cameron told Medicine Hat parents and guardians that students are using cellphone apps to store and hide photos, notes, documents and audio files that are disguised to look like normal apps.
During a virtual presentation held Tuesday evening, Cameron, who is a youth specialist who works for the Centre for Trauma Informed Practices, showed parents several apps being used by youth to keep secrets on their personal devices.
One app named “Hip” – Hide It Pro – uses a musical note as its logo and appears to be a music app. However if someone opens the Hip app they will be presented a message that the app crashed. But if a user presses down on the top of the app for two seconds, they can access a range of private photos and files secretly stored.
Another app imitates the look of a calculator and even functions like one. However, if a user enters their access code they gain access to the hidden files and information.
“Private photos, private videos, a gallery, maybe there’s music students aren’t supposed to be listening to,” explains Cameron. “Different documents, contacts with their information, a wallet with banking information, notes and a to-do-list.”
Many of these apps also come with a wi-fi VPN that changes the location of the country which students are accessing the internet from and can be used to hide their browsing history.
Cameron’s concern is students could use this encryption to access social media video chat sites like Omegle on their smart devices and engage in illegal acts and conversations with online strangers.
Before the anonymous video chat site was shut down in 2023, following a lawsuit that alleged it connected an 11-year-old girl with a sexual abuser, Cameron logged onto the site after hearing about it through her work in schools across Canada and the U.S.
“All I needed to do was agree to the terms and acknowledge that I was 18,” says Cameron. “And the first strangers that I talked to on this website were a 13 and 14-year-old girl.”
Cameron says the girls explained that they lied to their parents to access the site.
“What it actually is, if I would have stayed on for just 10 seconds longer, or perhaps just the next person I load onto, it’s men masturbating, women masturbating, sexualized pornographic content involved in this website.”
Cameron says it’s important for parents and guardians to stay on top of how their children are utilizing social media sites and technology.
“We may not be able to protect kids from every single situation, especially situations that arise due to social media and technology, but we certainly can make sure that they know that we are here for them.”
