Report examined popular mobile apps available through the U.S. version of the Google Play store. The report examined apps published by Disney, Samsung and niche app-makers such as the popular photo app Shutterfly. Researchers say many of the apps extracted sensitive user information including current geolocation data, historical data and MAC addresses without consent. The number of potential users impacted by these findings is in the hundreds of millions, researchers said. The Federal Trade Commission released the report as a follow-on to its PrivacyCon 2019 confab last month. Researchers describe two ways data can be share without consent; one is via a side channel
Source: https://threatpost.com/apps-access-data-without-permissions/146325/