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More Than 25% of Android Apps Know Too Much About You

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-they-always-forget-my-birthday dept.

CowboyRobot writes "A pair of reports by Juniper and Bit9 confirm the suspicion that many apps are spying on users. '26 percent of Android apps in Google Play can access personal data, such as contacts and email, and 42 percent, GPS location data... 31 percent of the apps access phone calls or phone numbers, and 9 percent employ permissions that could cost the user money, such as incurring premium SMS text message charges... nearly 7 percent of free apps can access address books, 2.6 percent, can send text messages without the user knowing, 6.4 percent can make calls, and 5.5 percent have access to the device's camera.' The main issue seems to be with poor development practices. Only in a minority of cases is there malicious intent. The Juniper report and the Bit9 report are both available online."

7 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. If only! by Joehonkie · · Score: 5, Funny

    If only there were some way for me to tell which permissions an app will use when I install it!

    1. Re:If only! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If only there were some way to know what permissions the app really needed to do its job!

      If only you didn't have to slog through 15 different flashlight apps before you find one that doesn't want access to your address book!

    2. Re:If only! by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You don't. Torch, Done.

      What Google should do is let me search for apps by permissions. I also wish they would let me never see a freemium app again. I have zero interest in them.

    3. Re:If only! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Disagree. It's a problem with humanity. Android does a good job of warning you that your flashlight app will send your contact list to the universe.

    4. Re:If only! by berj · · Score: 5, Informative

      On iOS I can choose *after* installation to allow or disallow certain activities.

      So.. for example.. I can allow an application access to my calendar but not to my contacts or photos.

      If a GPS application wants access to my contacts and location I can let it.. but if it asks for access to my photos and bluetooth sharing I can disallow it.

      It's quite nice, actually.

      Android is a "take it or leave it" system. Which I suppose is great for the app developers.. but not so much for users.

    5. Re:If only! by Voyager529 · · Score: 5, Informative

      LBE Privacy Guard. Still free, and still allows denial of permissions to apps on a rooted phone.

  2. DroidWall by brouiller · · Score: 5, Informative

    I root all of my Android devices and install the DroidWall app. It allows me to block network access to any app regardless of whether you give them permissions when installing. It's allowed me to download and use many apps that I would otherwise not have used because they wanted network access. It even lets you decide if you want to block the app on WiFi, cell data, or both.

    --
    In life you hoped to do what you could but mostly you did what you were told and that was the end of it.