In the past someone had to physically steal your documents or your wallet to get your personal information, but today your mobile phone is linked to the internet which can provide a gateway to your information for cyber-criminals. What kind of danger is your information in, and what is being done to protect your privacy and financial security?

Cell phone apps that you download and use on your phone often use your personal information to function, such as your gender,age, contacts and current location. Many apps collect, sell and sometimes broadcast our activities and personal information. Research has found that over 80 percent of the top 100 paid and top 100 free apps on Android, and 91 percent on iOS, do something that could risk your privacy and/ or security.

One of the biggest problems is that apps send our information to advertising agencies which then can bother us. Some companies track us online and collect our information. The more they know about us, the better they can sell that information to people who want to sell us things. Even well-known apps do this. An example is Pandora, which is a popular music app. It sends people’s age,gender and location to various advertising agencies. A game called Paper Toss sends your phone’s unique number out—that number is usually associated with your identity and is used to collect information about you from many different apps.

Many websites offer very poor protection to their customers. You might have noticed that as soon as you subscribe to one service, you start to receive many emails or phone calls from others. Your email address and information has been sold by that company to others. Some people become so inundated with advertising emails that they would rather close those email accounts and start new ones, or change their phone numbers!

Even more serious is when your bank or credit card account numbers are stolen. These can be used by criminals to buy things or steal your money. Research has shown that many of the criminals are from Nigeria, India and Russia. When they try to buy, it is most likely from a company that you have not dealt with and a location that you have not been to.

So what is being done to protect our information? Every time you load a new app, you will be asked permission for that app to use various aspects of your information, such as your location or your address book. Both Apple and Google have made a rule that apps have to ask your permission first. Make sure that you really want an app before you download it and think carefully before you give permission for it to use your information. Before you do, you might want to google what problems others have had with that app.

In many Western countries, government agencies give people the opportunity to register their email address and telephone numbers. Advertising agencies are then not allowed to contact those addresses and numbers. Also, in many countries, advertising emails are required to have an option for people to opt out of any further mail from that address. Think twice before you give your email address or phone number to any online service.

When our financial information, such as our bank account or credit card number, is used illegally, it is even more serious. Banks have computer systems that are able to detect an unusual activity, and they usually stop the purchase and first check with you. This gives some protection, but you need to be very careful with using your bank details to purchase online. You might want to think of signing up for a secure service such as PayPal.

Modern conveniences such as our smartphones and buying online do come with risks. As cybercrime becomes more sophisticated, the technology sector has to work hard to keep up. They should design technology with security in mind. But what matters most is user awareness. Find out more first if you are uncertain in order to ensure that you are doing all that you can to protect your information.