Smartphone apps regularly collect large amounts of data on users’ locations, sometimes as often as every three minutes, new research suggests.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study where they asked 23 people to use their Android smartphones normally, and tracked location data requests from each device with specially designed software, the Wall Street Journalreports. The researchers found that many popular Android apps tracked their users an average 6,200 times per participant over a two-week period, or about every three minutes.
The WSJ writes:
Even apps that provided useful location-based services often requested the device’s location far more frequently than would be necessary to provide that service, the researchers said. The Weather Channel, for example, which provides local weather reports, requested device location an average 2,000 times, or every 10 minutes, during the study period. Groupon, which necessarily gathers location data to offer local deals, requested one participant’s coordinates 1,062 times in two weeks.
Some of the apps came pre-installed on the phone, and were not as easily deleted, the WSJ reports. The researchers were also looking at whether users would benefit or appreciate software “nudges” that would alert them when sensitive data was being collected by their apps. The researchers found that the participants often changed settings when they learned that their apps were collecting information about them or their location.
The research will be presented at the CHI 2015 conference.
PHOTOS: The Rise of Mobile Phones from 1916 to Today
1916 A German field telephone station in the Aisne department of northern France during World War I.Paul Thompson—FPG/Getty Images1970
French singer and actor Johnny Hallyday in a scene from the film 'Point de Chute' (aka 'Falling Point').Keystone/Holton/Getty Images1980
An early mobile phone during the Iranian Embassy siege at Princes Gate in South Kensington, London.Kypros/Getty Images1983
Bob Maxwell, general manager of Englewood-based Mobile Telephone of Colorado, places a call on an FCC-approved radio frequency while driving to work.Lyn Alweis—Denver Post/Getty Images1986
THE A-TEAM "The Say U.N.C.L.E. Affair" Episode 5. (l-r) Eddie Velez as Frankie Santana, Robert Vaughn as General Hunt Stockwell, George Peppard as John 'Hannibal' Smith.Bill Dow—NBC/Getty Images1992
Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton talks on a cell phone while meeting with Boston Mayor Ray Flynn in a New York hotel on Sept. 25.Mark Lennihan—AP1993
Whoopi Goldberg during ShoWest in Las Vegas.Jeff Kravitz—FilmMagic/Getty Images1997
A farmer with his family sitting on a Bullock Cart and talking on a mobile Phone, in Delhi.India Today Group/Getty Images2001
A woman watches smoke pour out of the World Trade Center Towers in New York on September 11.Nicholas Goldberg—Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images2011
A rebel militiaman speaks on his mobile phone after capturing territory from government troops on March 25 in Ben Jawat, Libya. John Moore—Getty Images2011
A youth films the aftermath of tear gas police fired at protestors in Muhammed Mahmoud Street near Tahrir Square on November 23 in Cairo.Peter Macdiarmid—Getty Images2012
Audience members take pictures of President Barack Obama at Florida Atlantic University on April 10 in Boca Raton, Florida. Marc Serota—Getty Images2014
A teenager takes a selfie in front of Queen Elizabeth II during a walk around St. Georges Market in Belfast. The Queen has apparently voiced her dismay that when she carries out engagements she is greeted by a sea of mobile phones.Peter Macdiarmid—PA Wire/Press Association Images/AP
