(NewsNation) — Apps including TikTok, Facebook Messenger, Instagram and X use Apple push notifications to collect users’ data, even if the platforms aren’t running, according to a pair of developers and researchers from Mysk.
iOS apps can’t run in the background, so apps that aren’t active eventually close, according to a thread the researchers posted on X. Newer operating systems, however, allow apps to “wake” for a limited amount of time to customize push notifications. Once the notifications are sent, the app closes.
“However, many apps are using this feature as an opportunity to send detailed device service information while running quietly in the background,” the researchers wrote.
That includes keyboard language, battery status, memory, screen brightness and other details.
“Our tests show that this practice is more common than we expected,” Mysk wrote. “The frequency at which many apps send device information after being triggered by a notification is mind-blowing.”
A LinkedIn spokesperson said the company is “not not leveraging notifications as a way to collect member data for advertising or related analytics, cross device or cross app tracking,” Gizmodo reported.
“Data that is collected is only used to confirm that a notification was successfully sent and, on a transient basis, to queue the app experience in case the member chooses to launch the app in response to the notification never shared externally,” the spokesperson said, according to Gizmodo.
Meta additionally called the findings inaccurate and said the company, which owns Facebook, “may periodically use this information, even when the app isn’t running, to help us deliver timely, reliable notifications, using Apple’s APIs,” according to Gizmodo’s report.
Those practices are consistent with Meta’s policies, the spokesperson said.
Starting this spring, Apple will require developers to declare their reasons for using the application programming interfaces (APIs) that carry out those functions. Until then, users can block that kind of data collection by disabling the apps’ notifications.
