Keeping your personal information and data safe in today’s digital world is super important now more than ever.
This is why you should be extra conscious of what apps and other things you download onto your smartphone. These things can come with their own set of risks, and do things like put your privacy in jeopardy. Using information from tech pros, we’re listing 3 apps that can end up risking your information more than you may realize. Read more about them below.
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1. Background App Refresh
If you speak to any tech pro with experience in iPhones today and ask how you can maintain them better, this setting may very likely come up. This setting, which essentially keeps your apps refreshing even when you're not using them, has a much bigger impact on your phone's performance than you think.
"Many apps constantly update themselves with fresh content in the background, even when people aren't actively using them," explains tech pro Aimee Simpson. "As you might expect, this can use substantial battery life for little improvement in user experience. By switching off the Background App Refresh setting, people can control which apps update automatically, improving performance and battery life. You might keep the setting on for frequently used apps like Mail and fitness trackers, but in most cases, having apps refresh in the background is not necessary at all because they update almost instantly when you open them again."
2. Temu
Online shopping is one of the most common ways to get things right now, and Temu, an overseas site that offers extremely discounted and cheap products of a large variety, has become a go-to for people needing things on a budget. However, it doesn't have a good reputation for safety.
"Actually, the FBI warned in its public notice about foreign-developed mobile apps that Temu is on the alert list," noted cybersecurity expert Jurgis Plikaitis. "The app is aggressive because it merges highly accurate location data with a list of all installed applications. This list is a unique fingerprint, revealing banking, dating, health, and even medication apps."
3. Meta Apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger)
Meta is a massive, extremely powerful, and influential tech company. It's apps once started out as something simple, but are now becoming more well-known for their invasiveness.
"Users come here to connect with others and be entertained," explains tech safety author Patrick Coughlin. "They didn't come here to line the pockets of fraudsters. Meta's apps collect somewhere north of 150 distinct data points per user and stitch them together across the entire family of products, creating a boon for legitimate and fraudulent advertisers alike. Meta's platforms have become the single largest reported source of consumer fraud in the United States."
