“In America we have bible-reading applications: every single one of those applications asks permission to turn on your microphone, your camera, it wants permission to read your e-mails and the right to send e-mails wherever it chooses.”

The permissions also include SMS, video, photos, all of which can be wrapped up and sent to a fundamental religious group called “Focus on the Family”, he said.

“That scares me,” he said.

Fitting his angle to the audience, McAfee pointed out that everything that passes through a lawyer's e-mail is, after all, sensitive, whether it's facts or pleas, assertions or fees – and all of it, if a user okays excessive permissions, is available to an app.