The Impact of Mobile Apps on User Data Privacy

Mobile apps provide extensive access to user data, enabling companies to collect detailed information such as device IDs, usernames, emails, and contact lists. This contrasts with web browsers, which have restrictions on the data they share. Companies are able to control the data shared through their apps, leveraging the user’s device information, and this creates a landscape where they can gather more comprehensive user insights. Over time, this has raised significant privacy concerns, particularly with cross-app tracking and data sharing practices among apps. Apple introduced app tracking transparency (ATT) to address these issues, but the practice of sharing extensive user data has persisted through various software development kits (SDKs) that apps use for monetization. These SDKs facilitated the creation of extensive data broker networks, allowing free apps to gather and sell geographic and personal data to other businesses. Thus, the growth of mobile applications has significant implications for user data privacy and the transparency of data practices.