iOS Apps Caught Selling Location Data from Tens of Millions of Devices

The development team behind the GuardianApp mobile firewall and VPN app reports that an increasing number of iOS applications are in the practice of gathering and selling location data from millions of iOS devices.

The researchers' report says that all iOS apps found to exhibit this behavior collect GPS coordinates, Bluetooth LE beacon data, and Wi-Fi SSID and BSSID information.

Moreover, there are also a lot of them in the habit of also pocketing some extra device data such as accelerometer Information, IDFA advertising identifiers, battery charge, cellular network info, GPS altitude and/or speed, as well as location arrival/departure timestamps.

While collecting this type of data is reasonable for most of the apps found to do it seeing that they request permission to do it and do have valid reasons for it, the problem lies in the fact that none of them wi... (read more)

from Softpedia News / Global https://ift.tt/2N15CeI