Researchers have discovered 11 Android apps that have secretly collected sensitive data from users and are supposed to share it with the US government. It includes 11 apps that have been downloaded millions of times each and have been removed by Google from the Play Store.
11 apps that violate your privacy
according to Report Among the two American researchers from the internet security company AppCenus, there are 11 popular apps that illegally collected user data. This is due to the code that collected data without users’ consent.
The apps were logged, among other things: the contents of your clipboard, your phone number, email addresses, and location. Each of these apps has been downloaded over 1 million times and the three most popular apps have been installed over 10 million times. The data ended up on the servers of a US government-linked “Systems Standards” company. The United States buys such data from commercial companies, according to the researchers, and the data is used by defense and intelligence services. It is not known if the data of these apps in question was misused by the United States.
Remove these apps
Google has since removed the apps from the Google Play Store when it contacted security researchers in October 2021. However, these apps can still collect your data as long as they’re installed on your phone. It relates to the following applications:
Although Google removed the apps, some apps were allowed to return to the App Store after the respective code was removed. The researchers also re-examined the apps and found that they no longer secretly collect data.
I also recently got Google Cash Because it collects data in a less transparent way through the Messages app and the phone. Do you have any of these apps on your phone? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.