Report: 35% of China's Android Apps Steal User Information
eNet, 3/14/13
In the Data Center of the China Internet's (DCCI) recent 2013 Mobile Privacy and Security Report, DCCI found that 66.9% of the 1,400 most commonly downloaded Android apps have access to users' private data, and that 34.5% of the most-downloaded apps infringed upon users' privacy, accessing and recording user data including location, SMS records, and call records. (DCCI defines "infringing use" as access for purposes other than core app functionality.)
According to the report, as many as 73.1% of apps with access to user call records infringe on user privacy to collect data, 61.1% of apps with access to SMS records infringe on user privacy to collect data, and 60.5% of apps with access to users' phone number will make unauthorized use of the number.
DCCI's security assessment was carried out in cooperation with Qihoo 360's (NYSE: QIHU) 360 Safe Guard, Tencent's (0700.HK) Tencent Mobile Manager, An Guan Jia Technology's Anquan Guanjia mobile security app, US-basd TrustGo, LBE Privacy Guard, and MobileAnn Information Technology's MobileAnn Security (unofficial translation).
Editor's Note: A report in National Business Daily states that mobile advertising companies are the main collectors of users' private data. Small and mid-sized app developers sign agreements with ad companies to bury advertising code in their mobile apps as a way of deriving ad revenue from their applications. It is this advertising code that reads users' private data and sends it to ad company servers for use in targeted ad placement.
Keywords: mobile security wireless Android mobile advertising national statistics mobile application scam
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