Those Banner Ads In Mobile Apps Are Used To Track Your Location In Real Time

Thousands Of Apps Know Where You Are; Without You Or The App Developers Knowledge

It is well known that many apps do indeed track your movements in real time, and for some years now security researchers have been trying to get people to grasp just how wide spread it is.  Despite numerous warnings, both users and the legal system have preferred to ignore these warnings, but thanks to recent revelations people are starting to pay attention.  This was triggered, in part, by the release of data stolen from Gravy Analytics, which proved beyond any doubt that the banner ads displayed in mobile apps are used to track users locations in real time and that the collected data is sold to anyone willing to pay for it.

The list of apps which are abused in this way numbers in the thousands, and range from Candy Crush to VPN software to Microsoft Office apps.  For once, the app developers are innocent as they are not the ones collecting the data, it is the advertising brokers that are to blame.  To make matters worse, since the banner ad is actually hooking into the geolocation ability of the app installed on the phone, it can track your location as long as that app is running, no need for you to actually be using it.

This may be an egregious breach of user’s privacy, but it is not exactly illegal.  It will be interesting to see what fallout, if any, comes from this.