Top iPhone call-recording app shuts down after leaking users’ calls, transcripts, and phone numbers

A viral new app called Neon, which promised to pay people for recording their phone calls, has landed in hot water after a major security flaw exposed users’ personal conversations and phone numbers.

Launched just last week, Neon quickly climbed into the top five free iPhone apps and racked up 75,000 downloads in a single day, according to Appfigures. The app pitched itself as a way for users to earn money by letting their call recordings be used to train and improve AI models. But the hype didn’t last long.

TechCrunch discovered that Neon’s servers were not secure, allowing any logged-in user to access other people’s call recordings, transcripts, and even phone numbers. During a test, reporters found that the app’s back end could be manipulated to reveal not only their own calls but also the most recent calls of other users. The leaked data included audio files, transcripts, caller and receiver phone numbers, call duration, and how much each call had earned.

In some cases, the transcripts suggested that users may have been secretly recording real conversations with friends, family, or colleagues just to make money on the app. Importantly, while only people who installed Neon were directly recorded, those on the other end of the call had no way of knowing their conversations were being captured.