Dating apps like Tinder can be risky if you meet the wrong people. But did you know these apps can also track your activities and steal your data? In fact, not just Tinder, you should be worried about games like Candy Crush also capable of knowing your location data.

These scary details have come via a report by 404 Media this month, which tells you how the popular apps, with millions of downloads, can manipulate their functions and access data they will never need.

No Free Lunches

The price of free apps mean you see ads on the screen, and the report claims the companies running these ads are hand in glove with the ecosystem, allowing them to access sensitive data. But here’s the bigger issue with these practices, app developers from Candy Crush don’t really have any control on who or how the user data is being screened for their location and other sensitive matter.

The report says companies like Gravy Analytics act as a data broker who are somehow able to get the location data from these apps, without alarming the developers.

And things get worse, because the report says it is not just these two apps that are being used to track location of users, you also have other games like Temple Run, Subway Surfers equally culprit in this wrongful practice. You even have VPN and fitness apps added into this dangerous cocktail which can be a privacy nightmare for billions.

The Privacy Debate

Regulators are bound to be worried about these new revelations and privacy experts are quick to alert users about how to avoid becoming a victim of these activities. The most important way to protect yourself is to limit the use of your device location to the apps that really need it. Games like Candy Crush don’t really need this access, and make sure you keep them enabled only when using the app.

Using smartphones is so pivotal for everyone, attacks like these are inevitable so it is up to us to be vigilant and smart about how we use our devices and existence on the internet.