38 out of 50 popular mobile games are reportedly gorging on your data | Digit

Surfshark has released a report on the most data-hungry gaming apps. It has surveyed 50 mobile games and out of these, 38 titles are using user data for third-party advertising. The report also highlights other privacy-concerning aspects. Have a look.

Surfshark’s gaming app’s data privacy report

Surfshark has analyzed the 50 most popular mobile gaming apps (on Apple App Store) across 60 countries and here are its findings:

1. India is not one of the countries that play the most data-hungry mobile games. Canadians play such games the most. 

2.  8-ball pool is the most data-hungry app globally with 13 unique data points. It uses 11 of these like name, email address, and contacts to track the user.

One name, that Indian players may not be very familiar with, but is one of the most popular games is Egg Plant and has got 15 unique data points including name, phone number, and precise location. 

Another title called Gardenscapes takes 10 unique data points like emails and text messages. It even shares some of this data to 3rd party advertisers.

3. Meanwhile, on the other end of the spectrum, we have popular titles like Survivor.io that buck the trend and chose to be one of the best data-friendly apps on the market. 

4. However, that’s an exception, not the rule. About 6.9% of the surveyed gaming apps collected user contacts, 1.4% collected health data, 7.8% collected precise locations, and 3.5% collected SMS or emails. 

5. For better understanding, Surfshark has segregated these apps into two buckets namely behavioral data and social data. 8 out of the 32 data points are classified under behavioural data, including purchase history, gameplay content, audio, photos or videos, browsing and search history, and product interaction. Whereas 6 out of 32 data points are ascribed to social data including names, contacts, emails, text messages, precise locations, and phone numbers.

6. The biggest culprits are games like 8 Ball Pool which takes even your contacts, Chess — Play & Learn collects browsing history, and Roblox which accesses your search history.

Understandably some data collection is required for proper gaming functionality and features. However, it’s prudent to check what permissions you have granted, what information is being collected and how it’s being used.