Meta and Google mobile apps gorge on user data: Study
A new survey of iPhone app privacy labels puts hard numbers on a familiar suspicion. Some of the biggest tech firms ask for a startling range of personal data, and the gap between companies looks huge. Meta sits at the top, with its apps declaring far more categories of data collection than Apple or Microsoft. Google also fills the upper ranks. This matters because phones now hold daily life. They track movement, messages, purchases, searches, and habits. The study came from Surfshark and used privacy disclosures filed on Apple’s App Store, so it reflects what developers say they may collect, not direct monitoring of app traffic. That limit matters. The point stands. Big publishers show a vast appetite for user information.
A blunt ranking
The clearest figure is also the harshest. Meta’s apps declared an average of 25 out of 35 possible data types. Apple and Microsoft sat far lower, around seven or eight. That’s not a tiny edge. That’s a different philosophy. Google ranked below Meta on average, yet it packed the top of the table, accounting for 29 of the 40 apps with the broadest declared collection. Meta placed nine of its 12 apps in that top 40. Amazon looked hungry too, with Alexa listing 28 categories. Apple and Microsoft didn’t emerge spotless, though they looked restrained beside the rest. Those numbers make the model plain.
What they want
The categories matter as much as the totals. Meta’s apps all listed device IDs, product interactions, performance data, and crash data. Nine also listed precise location. Seven listed browsing history. Google apps all listed device IDs, diagnostic data, and performance information, while many also named search history, purchase history, photos or videos, email addresses, and usernames. Amazon’s apps commonly listed names, device IDs, email addresses, performance data, product interactions, and crash data, with 11 also declaring precise location. These aren’t scraps. Together they build a detailed picture of identity, habits, movement, and intent. A phone stops looking like a tool and starts looking like a sensor.
The caveat that matters
This study did not inspect live network traffic. Surfshark relied on App Store privacy labels submitted by developers. That means the findings show declared potential collection, not proof that every category gets gathered from every person all the time. Critics will seize on that point. Fair enough. Precision matters. Yet the caveat doesn’t wipe away the concern. A company still reveals plenty when it says an app may collect a long list of data types. Surfshark also examined 171 iOS apps from five tech giants, not the whole app market. That narrow focus helps. These firms shape norms. When they normalize broad collection, others notice.
Power in plain view
What this signals is incentive. Data improves ad targeting, product tuning, cross-service links, and user retention. Search history reveals intent. Purchase history reveals means. GPS data reveals movement. Photos, emails, and usernames tie behavior to identity. Put that together and a company gains more than a snapshot. It gains a system for prediction. Meta’s especially high totals fit a company built around advertising and engagement. Google topping six App Store categories, from Photo & Video to Health & Fitness, shows how far this logic spreads. Apple and Microsoft appear milder by comparison, yet even they still collect meaningful personal data. Nobody in this group runs on innocence.
This survey won’t settle every privacy argument, and it doesn’t need to. Its value lies in exposure. The disclosures show how casually the largest tech firms claim access to broad slices of personal information, and how unevenly that appetite varies across companies. Meta stands out for volume. Google stands out for reach. Apple and Microsoft look less aggressive, though hardly pure. The deeper lesson sits beyond the ranking. Privacy labels get treated like technical fine print, when they should signal corporate power. An app that asks for location, history, identifiers, purchases, diagnostics, and media files isn’t just offering a service. It’s staking a claim on daily life. That claim looks impossible to ignore.