Shock horror – many top mobile apps secretly collect your data
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In news that shouldn’t really come as a surprise to anyone, the most popular mobile applications are collecting sensitive personal data and sharing it with third parties, new research claims.
TechShielder researchers analyzed apps with the most downloads in 2021 and searched their privacy policies to better understand how they handle data collection, storage and sharing.
It turns out that 60% of the world’s most used mobile apps collect and store data generated from people’s private conversations. In addition, 80% collect data about messages their users send and receive. Finally, all apps collect at least the basic information, such as phone numbers or email addresses.
Storing Cookies and User Generated Content
In addition to sensitive data, most apps also look for cookies, which are small files that contain important information, such as login details. Nearly two-thirds (60%) store data about user-generated content, while half (50%) have access to the photos and videos users keep on their endpoints.
Society’s awareness of online privacy has grown tremendously in recent years as the general public better understand how much money companies make from user data. When most companies turned into data companies, the number of data breaches also increased.
As a result, this led to more fraud and ultimately more loss of money. Law enforcement officers and lawmakers joined the fray, trying to protect consumers with better legal frameworks (think GDPR) and faster responses.
Today, consumers are caught between sharing data with companies and getting more personalized offers and an overall better user experience on the one hand, and keeping their private lives private and protecting them from potential cybercriminals engaged in identity theft. (opens in new tab).
On the one hand, companies are caught between collecting data and using it to beat the competition, and on the other, cybercriminals who want to exploit their data protection weaknesses.
Through: VentureBeat (opens in new tab)