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21 Jun, 2015

How Android mobile apps are mining your personal data – Sydney Morning Herald

One in four apps on an Android mobile phone is loaded with an excessive number of un-related “trackers” that are funnelling valuable personal information to third parties. Popular games apps My Talking Tom and Swamp Attack in the Google Play store are among the worst apps, each loaded with more than 20 “connected trackers”, a study by Australian IT research agency NICTA shows. In contrast, the top 100 paid apps had on average 1.3 trackers each. “There is some element of the app trying to deceive the user, doing something more than its declared function,” said author Aruna Seneviratne, NICTA’s research leader in mobiles.

Read the rest: One in four apps on your Android mobile needlessly mining your personal data