News

More than 72% of Android apps are at risk of European GDPR violations

SafeDK is accessing the readability of android apps ahead of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation

More than 72% of Android apps are at risk of European GDPR violations

More than 72 per cent of Android apps are at risk of European GDPR violations, according to SDKs management platform developer SafeDK.

In its “March 2018 Mobile SDKs Data Trends Report in the Android Market” the company analysed recent data from hundreds of thousands of top Android apps and from over 1,000 popular SDKs.

The primary purpose of this was to ascertain the mobile industry’s current state of readiness for the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation, which will come into effect on May 25th 2018.

The GDPR aims to strengthen the rights that individuals have regarding personal data relating to them and seeks to unify data protection laws across Europe, regardless of where that data is processed.

Oh dear

The study found that more than 72 per cent of all analysed apps still use at least one SDK that is accessing private user data, which would make them susceptible to violations as a result.

Additionally, 34 per cent of all analysed SDKs accessed private user data through the mobile apps into which they are integrated. This number climbed to over 63 per cent for ad network SDKs.

Get the latest news, interviews and in-depth analysis on Twitter, Facebook and our daily newsletter.


Staff Writer

Iain is a freelance writer based in Scotland with a penchant for indies and all things Nintendo. Alongside PocketGamer.Biz, he has also appeared in Kotaku, Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamesN and VG24/7.