Your interests, income level, purchasing history, visited locations, your friends are all the information that can be sold to the highest bidder.
Privacy and Mobile Apps
It’s tempting to install an app from some store so you can have the privilege of making orders ahead. But after finding out what data such apps can collect, you might sacrifice your convenience for security.
Many apps gather more info on their users than necessary, and some sell this data.
Even something that appears to be innocuous at first sight, for instance, flashlight apps, might turn out to be dangerous for that matter. Take The Brightest Flashlight app. It was designed to gather the user’s precise location and unique device identifier to sell it to third parties without telling its users what it does. Even Uber asks for location data even at the time you’re not using it. To block this, you should turn off location data on your phone entirely.
What Information Can Mobile App Access?
When users install mobile apps, it gives companies more information compared to just visiting their websites. Facebook is probably one of the best-known examples. Users can access Facebook from their mobile browser, but if they try to access the website’s messaging capabilities, it prompts them to install Messenger. They are doing it to access user data on a much deeper level.
Starbucks once was storing users’ data such as email addresses, passwords, and GPS data unencrypted. And hackers could potentially get access to those data. They patched that vulnerability in a short time. However, there could be other apps with much more downsides in terms of security.
Although, you can make your phone more secure. If you are an iPhone user, you find out which apps have access to your data. Navigate to the Settings tab, and then tap Privacy.
On Android devices, go to Settings, then tap App; after that, tap Permissions.
When downloading new apps, pay aрtention to how seriously the app developer in question is about encrypting user information. Please read their privacy policy first. This information should be stored at the bottom of the App Store page. Check in before downloading an app.
Sign up For Apps via Virtual Phone Numbers
OnlineSIM is a service that offers virtual phones for registration on various services and mobile apps. You can buy virtual number to receive SMS. This will save you from exposing your personal phone number to sign up for an app. These virtual numbers are not linked to your private data. You can buy such numbers from the OnlineSIM company. Register on their website and go to your account, where you can see phone numbers and which you can use as an actual number.
