Experts from the company “pCloud” believe that “Instagram” application transfers the largest volume of personal data of its users to third parties, more than others.
These experts came to the conclusion that the applications collect information about their users for various reasons, including trying to correct errors and improve work.
In addition, this information is used to display ads, by transferring this information to third parties.
The results of the research conducted by the company “pCloud” showed that two-thirds of the applications are currently transferring this information to third parties.
It is possible that these parties are related to the company that issued this application, or they may pay money for the right to obtain this information. Importantly, these applications not only collect personal information, but also history search queries.
The experts concluded that “Instagram” transfers 79% of information about its users, including search history, personal information and purchase information.
The expert in digital marketing, Ivan Dimitrov, told Forbes that applications sometimes need to transfer certain information to third parties in order to help them provide their services, indicating at the same time that a number of programs and applications do this for their own interests, not for the benefit of users.
In addition, experts declared that “Instagram” is in fact a hub for transmitting such a large volume of data from its uninformed users, who number one billion people a month, and this raises concern.
Facebook is ranked second in the list of applications that transfer the information of its users to third parties, “Facebook” transmits 57% of the information. As for “YouTube” application, it transmits 42% of the information about its users.
Dimitrov said: “Large applications such as Instagram and Facebook seek to collect as much information as possible about their users, rather than concern themselves with protecting the security of this information”.
PCloud explained that about 80% of applications use their users’ information to move their products both in and out of the application.
The company revealed the names of applications that collect the least amount of information, or do not do so completely, including “Skype”, Microsoft Teams, “Clubhouse”, “Netflix”, “Signal” and “Telegram”.