According to a report by cybersecurity company Surfshark, popular ride-hailing & taxi apps collect the most extensive information about their users.
According to Surfshark’s data sensitivity index, which shows what type of data ride-hailing apps collect:
- GrabTaxi, Yandex Go, & Uber are the most data-hungry carpooling apps in the world.
- GrabTaxi collects almost 10 times more data than the least data-hungry app Rapido – 27 out of 32 possible data points listed by Apple. However, Rapido delivers the same service using only its user’s name, phone number, & location.
- Ride-hailing apps, on average, collect 14 data points per user & 30% of them use this data for “Third-Party advertising”.
- Most researched apps usually share the device & user ID, product interaction information, & precise location with 3rd parties.
- Most data-hungry apps can additionally use contact & payment information, user’s Content, & other user data for 3rd-party marketing purposes.
- Ola, the most popular ride-hailing app in India, comes 6th in the global data-hungriness ranking with a total of 18 data points collected.
Said Surfshark’s CEO Vytautas Kaziukonis, “Many people today are willing to trade privacy for comfort and share their personal information in exchange for a service. By doing so, people leave digital footprints everywhere they go, including their personal details, physical addresses, and even the links they click on. Moreover, some apps share users’ personal information with “third parties” for “marketing purposes”. For instance, our study shows that 9 out of 30 analyzed ride-hailing apps use collected data for “Third-Party advertising.”