Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

> How is knowing whether I have the Xbox or the Playstation app installed on my phone essential to their Swiggy's core functionality? How will knowing if I have the Naukri or Upstox app help them deliver groceries to my doorstep?

It is for fingerprinting purposes

fingerprinting is the best case scenario

What's the worst case, in your opinion?

Targeting and profiling. Reselling the data.

The US Customs & Border Control apps ("CBP Home" and "Mobile Passport Control") could check for blacklisted apps and flag you to be deported to an El Salvadorean gulag without due process.

Does El Salvador do gulags? I thought that was more of a Russian approach to imprisonment.

Maybe I'm wrong, but that feels pretty similar to fingerprinting. Usually that's why online services try to fingerprint you, for advertising and data revenue.

That is what the fingerprinting is for.

Fingerprinting is just for identifying user, not getting user data. You can potentially resell things like app usage to credit rating company.

Parent commenter doesn't mean literal gulags, but a similarly bad place sent people to by a similarly bad government.

This is likely in reference to a recent deal the US (Trump) has made with El Salvador, allowing them to ship US citizens off to prisons in El Salvador, whether this is actually possible is not clear at this point though [1].

Here is some more information about the conditions in these prisons in El Salvador, CECOT being the most notable one:

> Able to hold 40,000 inmates, the CECOT is made up of eight sprawling pavilions. Its cells hold 65 to 70 prisoners each. They do not receive visits. There are no programs preparing them to return to society after their sentences, no workshops or educational programs. They are never allowed outside. [2]

I believe the term gulag makes sense in that context despite it not being a forced labor camp. Not sure how this relates to Russia at all (apart from the origin of the term obviously).

[1] https://apnews.com/article/rubio-trump-deportations-usaid-f7...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/el-salvador-us-rubio-prison-de912...

It also checks for popular remote desktop apps (allow incoming connections to the phone) which could be used to increase scam success rate.

Same with banks apps, if you are a scammer it's really useful to know beforehand what kind of bank the target uses.

There are probably a whole bunch of groups who have a purposes for this kind of info, especially if they can link it to the phone number.

That is profiling.

Fingerprinting is an identification mechanism. It is most commonly used for targeting and profiling.

> despite it not being a forced labor camp.

Well, not yet, anyway.

I think the commenter was asking for a clarification on the hyperbole used. Unsure on the intend being candidly asked or there was an agenda (as it is often the case with political discussions).

Hopefully the El Salvador deal is a far cry from the internment camps from the 19th & 20th century.