Advertising Companies Rob the Smartphone Cradle

Have you friended a certain Rebecca Taylor on Facebook recently? You might have actually just accepted a friend request from Channel 4 News investigators. Channel 4 News decided to track data sent from a mobile phone by collaborating with IT security company MWR InfoSecurity.
The Setup"Data Baby," otherwise known as online as Rebecca Taylor, is creation of the television station's technology producer, Geoff White. White asked MWR InfoSecurity to build a data interceptor to track this virtual persona's mobile phone activity and see how much information the phone sends automatically to websites.
The "black box" from MWR InfoSecurity, followed the active social media and web life of this fictitious young English woman, tracing where her data went and who was using it. It stored the flood of communications between Data Baby's phone and servers across the globe.
Where's All The Info Going?White and his colleagues discovered that in the course of a day the phone was in contact with 350 servers around the world and sent and received 350,000 packets of information. Within a one-hour idle period, the phone sent over 30,000 packets of information to 76 servers. Its specific identifier was sent out six times to ad networks in the states and its exact location was sent to a Ukrainian advertising agency.
Smartphones have heightened the use and abuse of personal data because they've increased the amount of information people send and receive daily. They also allow advertisers to track users' movements through location data.
Treat Your Smartphone Like Your BabyEven when your smartphone is idle, it's still sending out hundreds of thousands of messages. While some of this traffic helps the phone function, most of the information exchange is simply sharing user's personal information with advertising companies.
Treat your smartphone like your PC; it has just as much or even more sensitive data than what you leave at home. Every time you install an app, read the list of permissions before automatically agreeing to allow them all. Keep your device updated and consider installing antivirus software on your device for extra preventative measures against hackers. Even though you can't prevent your mobile device from sending and receiving messages, you can limit the amount of personal information on your device. Be smart about what you put on your smartphone; it's a lot more active than you think