A recent Surfshark analysis shows that popular phone cleaner apps collect information such as contact details, photos and videos, browsing history, and precise location. Also, all of the most popular phone cleaner apps share data with third parties, such as data brokers.
Expert warns to be cautious when using phone cleaners
All of the most popular phone cleaner apps track user data. Tracking refers to linking user or device data collected from the app with third-party data for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes or sharing it with a data broker. Once shared, this data can potentially end up in the hands of hundreds of partners, who are free to use it for their own purposes — such as serving highly targeted ads.
“In order to delete data from your phone, phone cleaner apps may receive permission to analyze your files, browse your list of installed apps, and even access other data, such as precise location or browsing history. Since users run phone cleaner apps only occasionally, these companies often rely on collected data for revenue, which may be shared with advertisers, data brokers, or other entities interested in user behavior,” says Tomas Stamulis, chief security officer at Surfshark.
“The data then can be used to deliver highly targeted ads or analyze behavioral patterns across different demographic groups. With the power of AI, it may even be processed to anticipate which products or services users might be interested in the future,” adds T. Stamulis.
SurfShare says Ninety percent of cleaner apps share identifiers such as User ID and Device ID, while 70% go even further, sharing these identifiers along with additional data like location, purchase history, product interactions, and more.
Interestingly, 20% of phone cleaner apps also collect and share user location data with third parties. This raises concerns about the necessity and intent behind such data collection — after all, why would a phone cleaner app need access to a user’s location? These apps are primarily designed to optimize device performance by removing unnecessary files and managing storage — functions that have no clear connection to location tracking.
According to SurfShark, the app that shares the most data is “Cleaner Kit” by BPMobile, which shares nine types of user data with third parties. These include precise location, coarse location, user ID, device ID, purchase history, product interaction, advertising data, other usage data (related to user activity in the app), and other data types.
Importance of checking privacy settings
“If an app requests excessive access to your data, it may be collecting more information than necessary, so it’s always recommended to check permissions before installing anything on your device. In most cases, your device’s operating system already includes built-in tools that perform the same function without additional privacy risks,” says Stamulis.
- Before using a phone cleaner app, check its privacy section on the app store to see what data it collects. Alternatively, you can clean your phone manually without an app.
- On iPhones, regularly delete unwanted photos and videos, then clear the Recently Deleted folder. Lowering the Camera app’s image quality can also save space.
- For apps, consider deleting or offloading ones you no longer use. The iPhone Storage menu in Settings lets you view apps by size or last used date, helping you decide what to remove.
Methodology
SurfShark says it identified the 10 most popular phone cleaner apps and analyzed their privacy details on the Apple App Store. The comparison was based on how many types of data each app collects, whether it collects any data linked to you, and whether the app includes third-party advertisers.
For the complete research material behind this study, visit here.
Note on data used to track the user: “Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers.”
