Sorry, Smartphone Owners, But You're More Likely To Have Your Privacy Invaded.

This week, the society-studying Pew Research Center released a new report on privacy and mobile devices, a subject near and dear to this blogger’s heart. Here’s the good, the bad and the surprising portions…

THE GOOD: Pew found that 43% of cell owners download apps to their phones, up from 31% of cell owners in 2011. The good news is that it seems we’re getting somewhat savvier when it comes to avoiding the info-sucking ones. Over half of the 1,954 phone users surveyed said they’ve put a stake in the heart of info-vampire apps.

 *54% of app users have decided to not install a cell phone app once they discovered how much personal information they would need to share in order to use it

*30% of app users have uninstalled an app that was already on their cell phone because they learned it was collecting personal information that they didn’t wish to share

Good for you, wary ones! Of course, that may lead to app makers being less forthcoming about what information they collect. See this damning piece in TechCrunch about the five design tricks Facebook has employed to get users to pay less attention to what they’re giving up when they add an app.

THE BAD: All the intelligence on a smartphone makes it a more attractive target for snoopers. Smartphone users are more likely to have their privacy invaded than dumbphone regular old cellphone users.

Source : forbes