61% users uncomfortable sharing location information on apps, websites: Kaspersky Lab report

PUNE: There’s been a sharp increase in concerns among consumers over how traceable their online footprint is as per a new study done by Kaspersky Lab. 61 per cent people are uncomfortable with sharing their location information with websites and applications – a significant increase as compared to 39 per centin 2016. Further, 56 per cent are very concerned that someone can see everything they do or watch on their device and a similar figure (50 per cent) fear that someone could track them down using geolocation information from their device.Dmitry Aleshin, VP for Product Marketing, Kaspersky Lab said, “Apps have become an important part of our day-to-day lives. We use them for everything – from editing photos to updating our social media accounts, or from playing games to booking a table at a restaurant. But this research shows that despite our love for apps, we don’t necessarily trust them. While people are certainly becoming more switched on about their apps tracking their online activity, they aren’t necessarily putting measures in place to protect themselves from any potential problems.” He added that these dangers can be averted by putting in place some simple security measures.Further, not all these concerns were totally unfounded. According to Kaspersky Lab, apps can not only access a huge amount of data (such as details about where users are, information about their contacts, activities, etc), but they also often work in the background without users knowing. According to the research, 83 per cent of Android apps have access to their owners’ sensitive data, and 96 per cent of Android apps can launch without consent.However, people are avoiding the data safety or privacy measures that could help. For instance, 47per cent people said that they don’t check the permissions of their preinstalled mobile apps on their Android and iOS devices, and one-in-five (21 per cent) don’t check permissions when downloading or installing new apps onto their mobile devices. Because of this, mobile users are increasingly concerned, but remain unprotected from potential data leakage.

from The Economic Times https://ift.tt/2Jus1uu