Diabetes apps routinely access far more phone data than they need

Evidence

Among these apps, merely downloading the software automatically “authorized collection and modification of sensitive information.” The researchers identified a great deal of backstage action, including apps that modify or delete your information (64 percent), read your phone status and identity (31 percent), gather location data (27 percent), view your Wi-Fi connections (12 percent), and activate your camera in order to access your photos and videos (11 percent). Between 4 percent and 6 percent of the apps went even further: reading your contact lists, calling phone numbers found in your device, modifying your contacts, reading your call log, and activating your microphone to record your speech. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 781

Categorization

• SHARE: Send to a clinician or health-tech colleague: the 2016 JAMA diabetes-app data extraction audit with the striking percentages (64% modify/delete data, 11% access camera).
• XREF: connects to: FDA-approved health apps have understudied data-transmission practices — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 780; A single app accessed profiles of tens of millions without consent — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 872

Broader Connections

• FDA-approved health apps have understudied data-transmission practices #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 780
• A single app accessed profiles of tens of millions without consent #exemplifies (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 872