Shopping and Food Delivery Apps Are Hungry for Your Data

“Analyzing 100 popular apps on the App Store, we’ve found a concerning trend: nearly 20% of collected data is used for tracking. Such tracked data can be shared with third-party advertisers or data brokers, who use it to deliver personalized ads targeting the users, or aid companies in market research,” says Agneska Sablovskaja, lead researcher at Surfshark. “Understanding an app’s privacy policy is crucial for safeguarding digital autonomy.”

Here are some findings from the study:

• Shopping and food delivery apps, (like Amazon Shopping and Wish) are the most data-hungry apps.
• On average, shopping and food delivery apps collect 21 out of 32 possible data points. 95% of those are linked to your identity.

• Amazon Shopping collects the most data in its category, while Wish is #1 for linking and tracking user data.

• Uber Eats collects the most data out of all the food delivery apps.
• The social media sites owned by Meta, Facebook and Instagram, top the list of the most privacy-invasive.
• Around half of the 100 apps collect search history and your precise location.

You can use this tool, below, to check the apps on your phone.

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