During this research, a total of 20,000 mobile health apps on the Google Play Store have been tracked. It was told in the report that many apps are also tracking sensitive information of users.
Fitness Apps
Like smartphones, now fitness bands and apps have also become an essential tool for us in the corona epidemic. Bands and apps helped many people in the Corona epidemic. These days many types of hi-tech bands have started coming in which you get steps, SpO2, heart rate and other information. But according to a report by the Guardian, it has been revealed that the apps used to run these smartbands are now tracking the data of the users.
In a report in the British Medical Journal, Mohammad Ikram, lecturer at Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub, said about 88 percent of Fitnet apps that all of them are tracking user data. It has also been told in this that, all these apps track the activity of the mobile device. During this research, a total of 20,000 mobile health apps on the Google Play Store have been tracked. It was told in the report that many apps are also tracking the sensitive information of users.
This is how your data is tracked
Researchers also told here that, while a total of two-thirds of the apps collect advertising identifiers or cookies here, while one-third track the email addresses of users. Some apps here can also detect whether your phone is connected to a mobile tower and keep information about your location. But in this research, it has been found that only 4 percent are such health apps that transfer users’ data to third party apps.
On why these health apps share data with third parties, Ikram said that third party tracking companies and advisors use it for tracking and profiling. However, here health apps do not take responsibility for sharing the data with third parties.
Ikram also noted that users should only install the Health app from the Google Play Store if the app has a policy link on Google Play. If the app has a policy link on Google Play, then you can use it again, and if it is not there then you should not install it.
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