An investigation published by the Washington Postreports that many popular apps on iPhones, including the Washington Post app, are sending user data to surveillance companies. This appears to contradict Apple that "what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone."
In the jointly conducted research by Geoffrey Fowler of TWP and the privacy company Disconnect, it was discovered that many popular apps such as Microsoft OneDrive, Spotify, Nike and IBM's Weather Channel exploit the “Background App Refresh” feature on iPhones to collect and send user data, including phone numbers and IP addresses, to marketing and research firms.
The fact that various apps use trackers to collect user data without the users themselves knowing is not something new. The reason they do it is, as they claim, to improve the products they offer to consumers. However, the rate at which this data collection occurs is extraordinary. Fowler's research revealed that 5,400 app trackers detected data within just one week.
According to Disconnect, the amount of data detected by trackers within a month is about 1.5 GB, a figure that indicates a massive volume of data.
Yelp, the business directory service app, was found to send data via trackers every five minutes, while Citizen, the location-based crime reporting app, sends personal identifying information that violates its own privacy policies.
Apple has developed advanced anti‑tracking protection in Safari, while also providing a “Limit Ad Tracking” option on iPhones, which is disabled by default. Gaining access to an iPhone's data is generally difficult, but if an app manages to do so, then no one can know where that data goes.
Fowler suggests that Apple could add controls in iOS to provide transparency regarding how user data is used and also to have labels on apps that use trackers in the background.
