# Android app developers may be unwittingly sharing their users’ location data with advertisers

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/android-app-developers-may-be-unwittingly-sharing-their-users-location-data-with-advertisers/
- Published: 2026-08-04T20:26:53+00:00
- Updated: 2026-08-04T20:33:15+00:00
- Original publisher: TechCrunch
- Original article: https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/android-app-developers-may-be-unwittingly-sharing-their-users-location-data-with-advertisers/
- Topics: Gadgets, Software, Technology

## Key points

- EFF finds many Android apps leak location data via ad SDKs by default
- Two apps alone had 60 million combined downloads
- Developers often unaware; EFF urges disabling sharing by default

## Summary

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has warned Android app developers that third-party software components embedded in their apps may be quietly sharing users' precise location data with advertisers and data brokers, often without the developer's knowledge. This happens because software development kits (SDKs) used for advertising and monetisation automatically inherit whatever permissions the host app has been granted, meaning that once a user allows an app to access their location, that data can also flow to third parties unless the developer specifically disables it. The findings matter because location histories collected this way can end up being sold on to militaries, governments and intelligence agencies, and are also vulnerable to breaches affecting data brokers.

The EFF identified Android apps engaging in this practice, including two with a combined 60 million downloads, by analysing network traffic to see which services received users' location data. A senior EFF technologist said the SDKs examined represent only a small slice of the wider advertising ecosystem but still claim to reach billions of users across tens of thousands of apps. The report concludes there is no separate consent mechanism for SDKs, so app-level location permissions alone cannot represent meaningful user consent, and it is urging advertising SDK providers to stop making data-sharing the default setting.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.