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The new feelr.app is going to be shortly launched and it offers better digital security. Abhilash Inumella, Founder, feelr.app, spoke to BE’s Kuntala Sarkar.

Q. What are the major features of this app? 

A. feelr.app is a personal messaging application where the customer can communicate with only one person through the platform. It is meant to value the most important communication of the customers and avoid group chatting. One can avail the application by subscribing it for $4 to $5 per month. We are presently in the testing phase involving a few customers. It will be released broadly inthe coming few weeks. 

Q. How do big platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook or WhatsApp fare on personal data beyond the knowledge of their users? Please share your insights.

A. The privacy policies have become more stringent with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming in place. Social media platforms have to declare how they are using their user data. Facebook doesn’t always spy on user’s personal data; rather the users sometimes share crucial personal identifiable information voluntarily.

Similarly, even Snapchat collects a variety of user data. Now in some cases, these data are being used by them for different purposes. It is only then that the users realise that is happening without their concern. 

Q. How would you know without peeking into users’ personal information if they are misusing the application?

A. This question is applicable for all messaging applications. But it always doesn’t depend on the application these people  are using. Rather, it is a question of the phone number they are having. Additionally, the number of SIM cards they are inserting in their devices is also important. Their different telecom or Wi-Fi connectivity access points are also points of concern. They might send only a few messages through an application. In that case, messaging application developers like us don’t have much to do.

Q. What measures are being taken in your application in order to protect it from ever growing cyber threats?

A. In feelr.app, we follow end-to-end encryption. Also, we don’t monetise our application by advertisement. So, we are not going to sell our user’s data to any third party and we don’t mine their personal data. In the last ten years, a lot of cyber-attacks have happened. Equally, a number of security researches have also taken place. But now the security ecosystem is far more developed. Presently, I am using cloud computing service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft. A lot of precautions are already

taken by Amazon. So, whatever they are using for Amazon market players, they make it available for developers like us. Similarly, whatever Microsoft uses internally to get over cyber-attacks, they are offering it through their Azure platform. So, when we are running on their server, we are getting to utilise their best security measures. We are not hosting our own Bare Metal Server and that is preventing us from cyber threats significantly.

Q. If a security bridge or a phishing attack happens, what are your precautions?

A. All the guidelines set by AWS and Azure are being complied. We are using the same infrastructure. Also, every data is encrypted in our application. If a cyber threat happens and someone tries to read our data, it would not be possible.

Additionally, we store only the minimum required data in our server. All the data we store is the messages that needs to be sent to a device that is in offline mode. Once the message is delivered, it will no longer be in our server. In case of a cyber attack, nothing can be obtained from our application.

Q. How big is the challenge to develop a new application like this?

A. In some cases, users have felt that WhatsApp is sharing information with Facebook and that is reflected in their Facebook ‘friend request’ section. In the feelr.app, this cannot happen as we don’t use the subscriber’s personal data.

Our application is for interruption-free and secure communication, which is quite different from these platforms. The subscription-based service can be challenge in a country like India. But in case of European countries or in the US, it would not be a big issue as people there are ready to pay for the services.