EFFector

How Mobile Apps Can Leak Your Location to Advertisers

Episode Summary

Your location isn't just a pin on a map. Once collected, this information can expose some of the most intimate details about your life. A new EFF report highlights how location data is harvested from apps on our phones—potentially without app developers themselves even realizing it.

Episode Notes

Your location isn't just a pin on a map. Once collected, this information can expose some of the most intimate details about your life. The value of this information to advertisers and others has turned the location data business into a multi-billion dollar industry. 

But how do data brokers even know where we are? And what can we do to take back our privacy? A new EFF report highlights how location data is harvested from apps on our phones—potentially without app developers themselves even realizing it.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Support our work today at https://eff.org/podfan.

0:00 Intro

3:38 Mobile Apps and Location Data with Lena Cohen

24:25 The Fight for Digital Rights with Nicole Ozer

50:37 EFF Events and Opportunities