Smartphones have been around for about two decades, and it's difficult to imagine our lives without them. We use these little gadgets for a variety of purposes, including document scanning. There are plenty of document scanning apps out there, and some of them actually get the job done: using the phone's camera, they scan a document and extract text from it. Sounds simple enough.

CamScanner is one such app, but how exactly does it work, and is it safe to use?

What Is CamScanner? How Does It Work?

CamScanner was launched in 2011 on the Android and iOS platforms. It is now available on Windows and Mac, and there is also a web browser version.

Owned by a Chinese company called INTSIG Information, CamScaner is available for free on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store, but it is a freemium app. The Basic version is free of charge, but loaded with ads. There are also Premium and Business versions, with features such as additional cloud space and password protection.

CamScanner is tremendously popular. It has been downloaded by more than 700 million people across different platforms, which in and of itself speaks volumes about how reliable and well-designed it is.

The app automatically crops images, effortlessly scans documents and converts them from one format to another, and allows for easy editing. On top of that, CamScanner has a brilliant text recognition feature, which supports 40 languages.

CamScanner: Security and Privacy Issues

No matter how good an app is, it needs to be both safe and private to deserve a recommendation. Unfortunately, CamScanner has had its fair share of security issues over the years, and some concerns persist to this day.

In 2019, Kaspersky researchers discovered malware in the Android version of CamScanner. What they found was Trojan-Dropper.AndroidOS.Necro.n. As the name suggests, this is a Trojan dropper, which is a type of malware that downloads and delivers other malicious programs to the victim's device.

This means that some people who downloaded CamScanner back in 2019 had their phones infected with dangerous malware, which resulted in CamScanner showing intrusive ads, offering paid subscriptions to various services unrelated to the app itself, and generally creating problems for the end user.

CamScanner was removed from Google Play for a brief period of time due to this breach. Ultimately, according to Kaspersky, the company displayed a "responsible attitude to user safety," and removed the malicious program from its app.

In late 2020, the Indian government banned more than a 100 Chinese-owned apps, including CamScanner. As The New York Times reported at the time, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a statement that the ban was made in order to "ensure safety, security, and sovereignty of Indian cyberspace." CamScanner was removed from the Indian market as official New Delhi and Beijing were locked in a bitter border dispute that involved deadly clashes.

The United States did the same in January 2021. Then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning a slew of China-made apps from the US, including CamScanner. The move did not come as a surprise, given the political tensions between the two countries. In announcing the ban, the Trump administration cited concerns that the Chinese government may be using the app to spy on American citizens. The Biden administration let this ban expire in February 2021, according to The Associated Press.

CamScanner Privacy Policy: Does CamScanner Collect Your Data?

Claims about data security made by any government should probably be taken with a pinch of salt, but is there any merit to the suggestion that CamScanner violates user privacy?

In its privacy policy, CamScanner states that it complies with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Brazil's General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD).

This is certainly an encouraging sign, but CamScanner still collects and shares your personal information. The company says it encrypts data "if possible," and abides by local laws. Still, user data is shared with CamScanner's affiliates, as well as with third parties under certain circumstances.

It is possible to control how much data CanScanner collects, but only to an extent. For example, if you contact the company to restrict the processing of your personal data, it retains the right to reject your request. The policy is pretty vague here, because it says your data request can be rejected for any "number of reasons."

This may not be a deal-breaker for most, but how does CamScanner handle user-generated content? The privacy policy explicitly states that the app "will collect" the documents and images users upload, while security of said data is inspected on a "periodical basis."

Then there's also the fact that CamScanner is owned by a Chinese company. It has long been speculated that Chinese apps are incredibly invasive, and that some of them are being deployed by the country's autocratic government to spy on people around the world.

Whether this is true or not, it has to be said that Silicon Valley giants are hardly any better when it comes to data privacy and security. In fact, companies like Facebook are notorious for tracking users' online activities, and anyone who cares about privacy should avoid them.

CamScanner Alternatives: What's the Best Document Scanning App?

If you need a reliable app for document scanning, but would rather not use CamScanner out of privacy and security concerns, there are several secure alternatives that get the job done.

Adobe Scan, for one, is a very capable app. It detects and converts printed documents to digital text with almost stunning accuracy. The downside is that you need a paid subscription to access all of its features.

Microsoft Lens does pretty much everything Adobe Scan can do, and it is completely free. However, its Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature could be better.

Google Drive can scan documents as well—it has a built-in scanner feature. Though not as good as CamScanner, it's easy to use and does a decent job scanning and converting documents.

Scanning Documents With Your Phone

CamScanner is definitely one of the best document scanning apps available today, but those concerned about privacy and security may be reluctant to use it.

Fortunately, Adobe Scan, Microsoft Lens, and Google Drive are great pieces of software as well. With that said, there are a few other CamScanner alternatives, so make sure to check them out.