How many apps do you have on your smartphone?
According to Nielsen, the average Android or iPhone user accesses about 27 applications on their device each month, spending on average over an hour a day with these apps. So, of course, you were probably happy to download many of these helpful apps to your phone, especially those you could place there for free. But did you realize there may be a hidden cost to these newfound utilities? And that cost could be your privacy.
According to a survey by business security company Appthority and a new investigative report by The Wall Street Journal, most popular mobile apps collect various personal data from users, including information about their location, their address book contacts, and their calendars.
How does this process work?
Unique serial numbers are embedded into your mobile phone, called UDIDs. Appthority explains, “Access to UDIDs is a concern because, with a unique device identifier, developers can correlate user behavior across multiple apps (even if they have different usernames and passwords for each of the apps) and then match them to a unique user. While Apple has prohibited iOS developers from using UDIDs to track and identify users, Appthority discovered that the new rule is only enforced on devices running the latest iOS version.
Paid iOS apps surprisingly collect more data and share that information with more third parties than Android paid apps, making iOS slightly more risky than Android,” says Appthority. “Free apps remain the most dangerous category, exhibiting the greatest hazardous behaviors across both platforms.
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What kinds of information do your apps collect?
User location is tracked by 82 percent of the top Android free apps, 49 percent of the top Android paid apps to track, 50 percent of the top iOS free apps, and 24 percent of the top iOS paid apps. Address book information is accessed by 30 percent of the top Android free apps, 14 percent of the top Android paid apps, 26 percent of the top iOS free apps, and 8 percent of the top iOS paid apps.
Many of the top apps also harvest personal details such as age and sex. “You might not expect a flashlight app or a calculator to track your location,” says Bill Snyder, a San Francisco technology and business journalist, “but many do.
But why do apps do this?
“One of the main reasons app developers initiate app tracking is to generate supplementary revenue by sharing app user data with advertising networks and analytics companies. In some cases, particularly with free apps, developers are paid based on how much data they collect and share about users,” says Appthority. App developers even transmit full address books. Why? One reason is to expand their customer base.
How do consumers feel about this?
According to a poll by The Wall Street Journal, “Do you think apps should tell you when they collect and send information about the mobile device?”
67.9% said ‘Yes, every time.
23.2% said, “Yes, but only when I first install the app.
But have you ever had an application tell you that it is collecting and sending information about you to its developer?
What kinds of information are my apps collecting about me?
The Wall Street Journal analyzed the data collected and shared by 101 popular apps on iPhone and Android phones (including the Journal’s own iPhone app). For example, according to The Wall Street Journal report, here are the kinds of information that are tracked by two popular apps I have on my iPhone (which you may also have downloaded to your smartphone):
ESPN ScoreCenter – username, password, location, and phone ID are sent to the app owner. The Weather Channel – location and phone ID are being sent to third parties. To determine the behavior of the apps you downloaded onto your mobile device.
