Cybersecurity experts warn that travel applications, like AirBnB, Booking, or FlightRadar24, are among the most privacy-unfriendly apps. Yet, planning and traveling itself are almost unimaginable without the support of digital solutions.
More than 28% of permissions to access device functions requested by travel apps are unrelated to their performance, research by NordVPN reveals.
“Travel apps are among the most eager to request access to devices’ functions that are not needed for their performance,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN. “Collected data could be used against the user’s interests and lead to privacy issues that are way more serious than targeted ads. Users should always consider whether the app needs certain data to do its job before tapping ‘Accept,’ even if the app is developed by a well-known and trustworthy traveling service provider.”
According to cybersecurity and privacy researchers, on average, one travel mobile app asks for almost 23 device permissions, including access to your travel location or photos and videos. More than 6 of the permissions are unnecessary for the functionality of an application.
Moreover, the travel apps category stands above the average in requesting special, dangerous, and biometric permissions, which deal with highly sensitive or personal information and system-critical processes. Travel apps request 9 special, dangerous, and biometric permissions on average, while most of the apps from all categories request more than 7 permissions on average.
How to protect your privacy on travel apps
Warmenhoven offers these preventive measures to protect privacy on vacation:
- Download from official stores. Unofficial app stores won’t always have systems to check whether an app is safe before it’s published and available to download. Moreover, getting a travel app from an unofficial source carries the risk of it being modified by criminals.
- Read the app’s privacy policy before downloading. Check what information the travel app will track and what it will share with third parties. If you’re not happy with the level of privacy, use the webpage to use services instead of downloading an app.
- Get to know your data permissions. When you download an app, you’ll be asked to give various permissions to access your data. Make sure they make sense to you. If you already have an app, review all the permissions and turn off the ones you don’t want or need, and consider deleting the apps that ask for too many permissions (especially if they’re not needed for the app’s functionality). You should pay particular attention to permissions like camera, microphone, storage, location, and contact list.
- Don’t automatically sign in with social network accounts. If you’re logging in to an app with your social media account, the app can collect information from the account and vice versa.
- Delete apps you don’t use. If an app is sitting unused on your screen and you’re not using that app anymore, delete it. Chances are it’s still collecting data on you even if you’re not using it.