Caught my banking app sharing my location data with advertisers through a single settings toggle I never noticed

I was poking around in my phone's app permissions after a buddy showed me how his weather app was selling his coordinates, and sure enough my bank's app had been broadcasting my exact location to third parties for two years straight without me ever agreeing to a popup or reading a single privacy policy change email, has anyone else found sneaky stuff like that buried in apps you'd never suspect?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy15414d ago

Hang on a sec, I think the toggle you found might actually be for ad personalization tied to your account activity, not your GPS coordinates. Banks are usually under pretty strict rules about sharing real-time location data specifically, so it could be using your IP address or recent transaction locations instead. I'd double check by going into your phone's actual location permissions for that app and see if it says "while using the app" or "always" there.

the_holly14d ago

So all my bank knows is that I buy coffee and cry near ATMs. Cool.