Social Media Apps That Share Your Data (Privacy) Most To Third Parties.
Privacy is a major concern in the modern age. Everyone in the smart world is eager to keep information on their various devices a secret. It’s quite an irony that most people do not take time to read through privacy policies before signing up.
Instagram have been ranked as the most invasive apps on your smartphone, a new study has revealed. The Facebook owned social media network, which centers around sharing pictures and videos shares 79% of users’ personal data like current location, contacts and financial information to third parties like advertisers.
Facebook and Instagram has high user rate which indicates that more information about users are out there.
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The study was conducted by a cloud storage firm, pCloud. PCloud made this discovery after analyzing the recently introduced Apple App Privacy labels. This requires all developers including itself to disclosing exactly the usage of users’ data. This includes giving out how data will be utilized by the app in order for features to work as designed.
“Any information you agree to be gathered by an app when signing up can be analyzed for their benefit and even shared. Everything from your browsing history, to your location, your banking details, your contact details, and your fitness levels can be valuable for apps to store, use, or sell on,” Ivan Dimitrov, a digital manager at pCloud, wrote in a blog post detailing the research.
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“With over 1 billion monthly active users it’s worrying that Instagram is a hub for sharing such a high amount of its unknowing users’ data.”
When it comes to gathering data on its users, second only to Instagram is parent company Facebook. The social network shares 57% of users’ data to third-parties. Which pCloud researchers claim can also include companies that have affiliation with the company. In Facebook’s case, that includes Instagram and WhatsApp.
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To conclude, privacy is a huge part of our online presence. Having some of our favorite apps responsible for such great breach of privacy policies is disheartening.
A little advice, always try to read privacy policies and terms of conditions before signing up.
We should also be careful on the kind of activities we use our apps as well the information with upload or send. Social media is a powerful tool which can make you and unmake you.
