Meta apps take top four spots as most privacy-invasive, study reveals

Among the 100 most popular apps on Apple App Store, Meta’s newest app, Threads, took the top spot as the most invasive, collecting 86% of its user’s personal data, research by The Money Mongers has found.

Its lofty position is shared with three other invasive Meta apps: Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. Fifth place went to LinkedIn with a score of 65%

Beyond social media, within the top 10 apps, Lyft, Uber Eats, and Google lead with a 48% data collection score.

“Meta is arguably the most data-hungry company, with most of its apps collecting an astounding 86% of the user’s personal data,” the report reads. “Threads collects 72% more personal data than X (formerly Twitter).”

Smartphones are now at the center of our everyday lives, connecting with friends, doing business, or keeping ourselves entertained.

Researchers looked at 14 different data points that apps were taking, such as purchases, locations, contact info, user content, health and fitness, financial info, and others.

They found that 51% of the apps share their user data with third parties. At the same time, 72% of the apps collect data for their own benefit. Social media apps top the charts on data collection for third-party ads at an average of 38%.app-p

“7 out of 10 social media apps top the list of apps collecting the most user data, with a collective privacy score of 71%,” researchers warn.

The data was last recorded on 12 October 2023. On iPhones, App developers usually collect data under two categories: third-party advertising and the developer’s advertising or marketing. The final percentage represents the average of scores for those two categories.