The location of millions of cell phones is for sale. An SRF survey reveals: one in five applications transmits data to third parties.
Take the example of Wetter Online, one of the most popular weather apps in Switzerland: anyone who allows the app to access their location is informed about changes in local weather conditions. But today, the app faces headwinds.
An international investigation by SRF, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Netzpolitik.org and other media reveals: locations are not only used for precise weather forecasts, they are also transmitted to countless companies – and are sold on the Internet. Wetter Online is not an isolated case. Thousands of apps reveal their users’ movements, including many popular apps in Switzerland.
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Data likely from advertising networks
Free apps are everywhere. As operators do not earn any income from sales, they often finance themselves by inserting advertising space into their applications. These are auctioned by advertising networks. Every time it is used, the app shares user data, preferences and location with advertising companies, so they can display ads that are as personalized as possible. But data isn’t just used for advertising purposes: data traders around the world access this data and sell it to almost anyone who pays for them.
SRF, together with other media outlets, have a dataset that shows for the first time the scale of data trading through mobile apps and provides insight into the shadowy trading of user data. This data comes from the American group Datastream, now known as Datasys, and was probably collected through international advertising networks.
It’s a list of nearly 40,000 apps around the world – and location data from millions of their users. The data contains more than 380 million locations from more than 47 million devices in 137 countries. Hundreds of data points can be found for individual people over the course of a day, revealing where the person slept, who they met and where they work. Private or intimate information that few people would be willing to sell. According to IT security expert Ivano Somaini, this data can also provide sensitive information to stalkers, pedophiles or fraudsters.
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-On the list of 40,000 applications, some are very popular in Switzerland, and transmit location data frequently and precisely. These include, for example, several commercial weather apps like Wetter Online, the communications app Kik, the shopping apps Kleinanzeigen (formerly Ebay Kleinanzeigen) and Le Bon Coin, news apps with lots of advertising like Focus Online , from the dating app Hornet , an LGBTQ+ dating app focused on male users, or tools like Flightradar24 .
Some of them even admit in their privacy policy that they collect this data and transmit it to advertising partners. However, it is not specified anywhere that this data can also be sold to all interested parties for other purposes.
In Switzerland, one in 5 applications is affected
The majority of apps in the dataset do not provide exact location. Rather, it is “imprecise location data”, usually based on the IP address. One of them, Grindr, is particularly popular with gay men. Advertisers – and all other buyers of this data – can therefore draw conclusions about the sexuality of certain people based on the origin of the application data. This category also includes dating apps Tinder, Lovoo, Jaumo, messaging app GMX and popular games Block Blast! and Candy Crush Saga, the Vinted shopping app and tens of thousands of other apps. Although they don’t share exact locations, they still reveal sensitive information about their users to advertisers – and data traders.
A comparison with the current lists of the 50 most popular free applications in Switzerland shows that one in five applications is affected. Apps from the categories games, entertainment, social networks, music, sport (football results) and weather particularly stand out. More than half of the most popular games on Swiss mobile phones reveal the location of their users.
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Is the use and sale of data legal?
SRF has contacted all manufacturers of the mentioned applications. Most say they have no direct business relationship with data trader Datastream Group, but admit to passing data to advertisers.
Is the use of Swiss user data by these applications legal? Florent Thouvenin, professor of information and communication law at the University of Zurich, believes that applications must be examined individually. Swiss data protection law would allow a relatively large amount of data, provided users are informed transparently. “Given that many people are affected by this matter, it could be wise for the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Transparency to initiate a procedure,” believes Florent Thouvenin
Keto Schumacher et Julian Schmidli (SRF)
