Mobile data sharing is ‘out of control’: Google hoovers up personal information from 90 per cent of apps, Oxford researchers warn
- Researchers studied 959,000 apps on the US and Google Play Stores
- 88% of these could hand over data to Alphabet, which owns Google
- More than 40% could transfer information to businesses owned by Facebook
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The harvesting and sharing of data by mobile phone apps is out of control, Oxford researchers have warned.
They found almost 90 per cent of free apps on the Google Play store shared data with Google parent company Alphabet.
More than 40 per cent could transfer information about users to businesses ultimately owned by Facebook.
The harvesting and sharing of data by mobile phone apps is out of control, Oxford researchers have warned (stock image)
Researchers studied 959,000 apps on the US and Google Play Stores, 88 per cent of which could hand over data to Alphabet, which owns Google.
The study found that most apps contained ‘third party tracking’ while news apps and apps targeted at children were the worst in terms of the number of third party trackers associated with them.
‘Billions of people use smartphones every day, generating vast amounts of data about themselves’, scientists wrote in the paper.
‘Much of the functionality afforded by these devices comes in the form of applications which derive revenue from monetising user data and displaying behaviourally targeted advertising.’
The data, which can be used for targeted advertising, credit scoring, or targeted political campaign messages, is highly lucrative.
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Revenues from online advertising are more than $59billion (£45billion) a year in the US alone, the researchers said.
Their research found that firms which could collect data had become a ‘signficant’ part of the digital economy.
Reuben Binns, the computer scientist who led the project, said that because most apps were now free, making money from advertising rather than from the cost of downloading them, data sharing had spiralled out of control.
He said users, regulators and sometimes even the app developers themselves were unaware of the extent to which data flowed from smartphones.
‘It feels like this legitimate business model has gone completely out of control and created a kind of chaotic industry that is not understood by the people who are most affected by it,’ he told the Financial Times.
Researchers studied 959,000 apps on the US and Google Play Stores, 88 per cent of which could hand over data to Alphabet, which owns Google (stock image)
It comes as websites are under growing scrutiny over how they use people’s data.
But so far, the smartphone apps – of which there are millions – have received little attention.
The researchers looked at the code in apps that indicates data is being transferred.
They found data often flows upwards to a handful of companies, notably Google’s parent company Alphabet, as well as Facebook, Twitter, Verizon, Microsoft and Amazon.
Because data is ultimately transferred to the same businesses, it can be used to create detailed profiles, the academics said.
For example, if information from a dating app was shared with the same parent company as data from a banking app, it could be possible to deduce the sexuality of a bank’s customers, the FT reported.
Scientists found that third party tracking was highly trans-national, with many trackers operating in jurisdictions outside the EU.
Joel Reardon, assistant professor of computer science at the University of Calgary, said: ‘Mobile phone are stores of sensitive information and if your phone is on, they’re just sending the information all the time to the same third parties.
‘Even just the characterisation of what apps you have on your phone is quite an insight into a person’s life, you can learn information about their age, sexual orientation, health and link it back to their device.’
The researchers also found that 90 per cent of apps could transfer data to third parties in the US, with five per cent able to send data to third parties in China and three per cent to those in Russia.
One in five apps were able to share data with more than 20 third parties.
Researchers believe there are ‘ significant legal compliance challenges’ facing the tracking industry.
Google disputed the latest research, saying researchers mischaracterised ‘ordinary functions’ such as an app reporting back when it had crashed and its analytics.
A spokesman said: ‘Across Google and in Google Play we have clear policies and guidelines for how developers and third-party apps can handle data and we require developers to be transparent and ask for user permission. If an app violates our policies, we take action.’
HOW CAN YOU FIND AND DELETE WHERE GOOGLE KNOWS YOU’VE BEEN?
Even if you have ‘Location History’ off, Google often stores your precise location.
Here’s how to delete those markers and some best-effort practices that keep your location as private as possible.
But there’s no panacea, because simply connecting to the internet on any device flags an IP address that can be geographically mapped.
Smartphones also connect to cell towers, so your carrier knows your general location at all times.
To disable tracking on any device
Fire up your browser and go to myactivity.google.com. You’ll need to be logged into Google.
On the upper left drop-down menu, go to ‘Activity Controls.’ Turn off both ‘Web & App Activity’ and ‘Location History.’
That should prevent precise location markers from being stored to your Google account.
Google will warn you that some of its services won’t work as well with these settings off.
In particular, neither the Google Assistant, a digital concierge, nor the Google Home smart speaker will be particularly useful.
On iOS
If you use Google Maps, adjust your location setting to ‘While Using’ the app. This will prevent the app from accessing your location when it’s not active.
Go to Settings Privacy Location Services and from there select Google Maps to make the adjustment.
In the Safari web browser, consider using a search engine other than Google.
Under Settings Safari Search Engine, you can find other options like Bing or DuckDuckGo.
You can turn location off while browsing by going to Settings Privacy Location Services Safari Websites, and turn this to ‘Never.’
This still won’t prevent advertisers from knowing your rough location based on IP address on any website.
You can also turn Location Services off to the device almost completely from Settings Privacy Location Services.
Both Google Maps and Apple Maps will still work, but they won’t know where you are on the map and won’t be able to give you directions.
Emergency responders will still be able to find you if the need arises.
On Android
Under the main settings icon click on ‘Security & location.’ Scroll down to the ‘Privacy’ heading. Tap ‘Location.’ You can toggle it off for the entire device.
Use ‘App-level permissions’ to turn off access to various apps.
Unlike the iPhone, there is no setting for ‘While Using.’
You cannot turn off Google Play services, which supplies your location to other apps if you leave that service on.
Sign in as a ‘guest’ on your Android device by swiping down from top and tapping the downward-facing cursor, then again on the torso icon.
Be aware of which services you sign in on, like Chrome. You can also change search engines even in Chrome.
To delete past location tracking on any device
On the page myactivity.google.com, look for any entry that has a location pin icon beside the word ‘details.’
Clicking on that pops up a window that includes a link that sometimes says ‘From your current location.’
Clicking on it will open Google Maps, which will display where you were at the time.
You can delete it from this popup by clicking on the navigation icon with the three stacked dots and then ‘Delete.’
Some items will be grouped in unexpected places, such as topic names, google.com, Search, or Maps.
You have to delete them item by item. You can wholesale delete all items in date ranges or by service, but will end up taking out more than just location markers.
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