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Meta reveals it is secretly tracking Android users via Instagram and Facebook
2025-06-04 19:12:53 / TRENDING
Experts believe that Meta and search engine company Yandex have been secretly tracking Android users in the background of their devices.
Academics at Radboud University in the Netherlands and IMDEA Networks said they found that Meta and Yandex have been tracking Android users' browser activity without their consent and then using the data in their own apps.
Meta said it was looking into the matter, while Yandex denied having collected sensitive data.
Gunes Acar, an assistant professor at Radboud University, said the "covert" data collection was noticed in January.
He said he found that Meta apps, including Facebook and Instagram, and Yandex apps, such as Yandex Maps, were running in the background of Android devices and loading a script that sent data locally back to the apps on users' phones.
The scripts bypassed Android's security measures and meant that Meta and Yandex could track what users were doing in web browsers, without the user's consent or even knowledge, according to the expert.
"They are connecting these two worlds that we think of as separate; web browsing and mobile app activities," Dr. Acar told Sky News.
“This is very shocking.”
The apps were able to track users' browser data across all major Android browsers, even if the user was in incognito mode, the academics said.
"It's really worrying because it negates any privacy controls that you have in modern browsers and also in modern mobile platforms like Android," Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez, associate professor at IMDEA Networks, told Sky News.
Google, which owns the Android operating system, confirmed the covert activity to Sky News.
It said Meta and Yandex used Android's capabilities "in unintended ways that clearly violate our security and privacy principles."
What did Meta and Yandex say?
Meta told Sky News that he was quickly reviewing the matter.
"We are in discussions with Google to address a possible misunderstanding regarding the implementation of their policies," a Meta spokesperson said.
"After being made aware of the concerns, we decided to discontinue the feature while we work with Google to resolve the issue."
Yandex said it "strictly complies with data protection standards", adding: "The feature in question does not collect any sensitive information and is intended only to improve personalization within our applications."
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