London, Dec. 20: Do you know that dozens of popular iPhone applications could be secretly spying on what you do with them.
More than half of the programmes and games for smartphones sent data back to the private company once they had been downloaded, a study has found.
It found that of the 101 applications tested, 56 transmitted the phone’s individual number to a private company in some way, known as the Unique Device Identifier or UDID.
Some 47 sent the phone’s location and five sent age, gender and other personal information, reports the Daily Mail.
The applications include the wildly popular Angry Birds game and music identifying software Shazam, which comes pre-installed on every iPhone.
More data was sent back about a user’s location on the Apple’s iPhone than Google’s Android smartphone, the research discovered, even though both companies have promised not to let such practices take place.
Armed with this information, firms, including Google, track the individuals movements and sell personalised ad for which they can make more money than regular ones.
The research was carried out in the US but it would apply to users downloading applications from anywhere in the world.