Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn share more than 50% of user data

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A cyber security firm studied applications on Apple’s App Store to find out which people share data with third parties, and how much. pCloud studied the top 100 App Stores in the ecosystem and noted that more than 52% of users share data with third parties. This information includes search, browsing history, and personal data on the mobile device used.

Instagram gets about 80% of its bill monthly active users’ data to third parties. This includes purchase history, location, contacts, usage, and profile data. Its original Facebook, and Microsoft-owned LinkedIn followed the photo-sharing app. The pair shared more than half of their users’ data, the pCloud study noted.

The observations highlight the growing problem of online privacy shortages as companies share their users’ data with third-party firms without their knowledge.

Also read Center asks Delhi HC to stop WhatsApp from implementing its new privacy policy

The cyber security firm said that 80% of the apps used data to market their own products. This includes apps serving their own advertisements on other platforms, as well as in-app promotions for their own benefit. According to the study, Facebook and Instagram collect more than 85% of their data for their own benefit, indicating that social media apps are the worst culprits for collecting data for their own marketing.

However, messaging app signals, clubhouse and streaming service Netflix are said to be the most secure apps because they do not collect any data. Other secure apps include Microsoft Team, Telegram, Google Classroom and Zoom.

“While these apps can be trusted to do nothing malicious with your information, there are many people who cannot. That is why it is important to have a safe place to store your data, preventing anyone from accessing it without your permission, ”the study said.