According to a new study from the University of Oxford, the applications have little privacy on both iOS and Android.
According to a study by experts from the University of Oxford in England, neither of the top two mobile operating systems manages to deliver high privacy on smartphones.
In the article titled “Are iPhones Better for Privacy? Comparative Study of iOS and Android Apps,” researchers examined 24,000 Android and iOS apps available in 2020.
Experts concluded that iPhones are no better for privacy than Android apps, and both platforms don’t protect their users’ data.
iOS and Android are not private
The research team analyzed 12,000 applications from each ecosystem, tested them using static analysis and dynamic analysis, looked at the tracking libraries and the companies behind them, checked network traffic for personally identifiable information (PII), and analyzed the permissions.
“We found that third-party tracking and the sharing of unique user identifiers was widespread in applications from both ecosystems, including applications targeting children,” says the research.
Additionally, most apps on either platform (90% on Android and more than 60% on iOS) shared data with Google-owned tracking companies.
Almost all of the tracking companies observed were based in the United States, with about 9.5% of iOS apps and 5% of Android using Chinese trackers, while 7.5% of iOS apps and 2% of Android used Indian trackers.