Are Your Phone Apps Sending Personal Info?
The Wall Street Journal reported that New Jersey prosecutors are investigating whether certain phone applications are transmitting personal data to marketing agencies illegally. To that end, WSJ tested 101 applications and found that 56 of them transmitted the device unique identifier off the device, while 47 transmitted the phone’s location. Five of the tested applications leaked personal information such as user gender and age.
The article states, “In Pandora’s case, both the Android and iPhone versions of its app transmitted information about a user’s age, gender, and location, as well as unique identifiers for the phone, to various advertising networks. Pandora gathers the age and gender information when a user registers for the service”.
This prompted Veracode to conduct its own research into this controversial issue. They chose the popular radio application Pandora. Veracode identified 5 advertisement libraries being fed information. “The Pandora for Android application appears to be integrated with a number of advertising libraries. Specifically we found FIVE (yes that’s FIVE!) advertisement libraries compiled into the application: AdMarvel, AdMob, comScore (SecureStudies), Google.Ads, and Medialets“.
Veracode and the WSJ are doing a very good job of bringing this to light. Even though the apps are free and the user knowingly installs them do you think this gives them the right to transmit personal data without permission from the Android or iPhone user?
