10 Apps on Your Phone That Allow People to Spy on You. Floridians, Beware

The phone in your pocket knows your location, your daily routine, who you talk to, what you search for, and what you buy.

Unfortunately for Floridians and Americans across the country, several of the apps we use every day collect that information and share it with people we’ve never met.

Some of it enables targeting. Some of it enables something closer to surveillance.

Here are ten apps that allow people to spy on you, depending on your permission settings.

1. Facebook

Facebook has spent over a decade building one of the most detailed behavioral profiles ever assembled on a private citizen, and it does it using data collected from people whether they’re actively using the app or not.

Meta tracks browsing activity, ad interactions, and location data.

It then uses this data to build a profile for each user.

This includes decisions made away from the apps themselves, meaning Meta can see what you’re doing even when you’re not using their apps.

If location permissions are set to “Always Allow,” Facebook collects your location even when the app isn’t open.

Photo and post metadata can also be harvested, pulling location coordinates embedded by your phone the moment you upload an image.

Facebook was the most-fined platform for violating privacy regulations, receiving four fines under GDPR in the EU, one in the US, and five in other jurisdictions. The FTC reached a $1.3 billion settlement with Meta over privacy violations on Facebook and Instagram.

That’s not a company making honest mistakes.

The practical takeaway is to set location permissions to “While Using” rather than “Always,” and to review ad personalization settings, which are buried but accessible.

2. TikTok

TikTok’s data collection practices triggered a U.S. Supreme Court case, a brief nationwide ban, and ongoing national security debates.

The privacy concerns are documented and serious.

TikTok collects extensive user data, including device information, location, IP address, search history, message content, biometric information (including face and voiceprints), email address, phone number, date of birth, and metadata.

The data collection process extends to the contents of a user’s clipboard when shared with third parties.

TikTok also collects contacts and calendars, device characteristics, and scans installed applications running in the background.

In 2022, leaked audio obtained by BuzzFeed News revealed that TikTok employees in China had access to U.S. user data, contradicting previous claims that U.S. data was stored securely.

The Supreme Court flagged TikTok’s ability to collect names, contact information, contact photos, job titles, and notes from users’ contact lists, warning that this data could enable foreign actors to track locations and build personal dossiers.

Whether or not the national security framing resonates with you, the data collection scope is real and well-documented.

3. Instagram

Instagram operates under Meta’s umbrella.

It shares the same data collection infrastructure, which means the same behavioral profiling and cross-platform tracking that defines Facebook applies to Instagram, too.

In May 2019, an unprotected server led to the exposure of 49 million accounts, including personal contact information such as email addresses and phone numbers.

In August 2020, an unsecured database of 235 million profiles scraped from Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube was exposed online, with Instagram accounting for 100 million of the affected profiles.

The data Instagram collects feeds into Meta’s advertising ecosystem, which means your behavior on Instagram contributes to the same profile that Facebook builds.

The two apps share data across platforms, linking your activity into a single identity that follows you across the internet.

Reviewing app permissions and limiting location access to “While Using” reduces but doesn’t eliminate the data flow.

4. Google Apps (Gmail, Maps, Chrome, YouTube)

Google’s data collection is broad, not because any single app is especially invasive, but because the number of products under the Google umbrella means the company can aggregate a comprehensive picture of your life from multiple directions.

Google Search, Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, Maps, Chrome, Gemini, and even entire operating systems like Android and ChromeOS all fall under the Google umbrella.

Depending on your reliance on Google services, the company could know everything from your location history to your home address to your late-night searches for concerning medical symptoms.

Every Google app collects extensive data.

That data is aggregated across Google-owned apps and platforms.

Using Chrome’s incognito mode provides some protection, but it doesn’t eliminate tracking, especially if you log into personal accounts like Gmail or YouTube while using it.

The aggregation is the issue.

Each individual app seems reasonable. All of them combined, running simultaneously, build a level of detail about your daily life that most people haven’t stopped to consider.

5. Weather Apps

Weather apps require your location to function, which is a reasonable permission for the service they provide.

What most users don’t realize is what some of those apps do with that location data once they have it.

Apps like The Weather Channel and AccuWeather need to track your location via GPS to deliver weather information.

GPS location data is both precise and potentially sensitive.

It can reveal your home address, where you work, and your daily habits and routines. Many weather apps make money through location-based advertising and can sell your data to third-party brokers.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation documented that data brokers collect location data from apps through software development kits embedded in those apps, and that law enforcement agencies, including immigration enforcement, have purchased this location data from brokers.

The weather app on your phone is a potential link in that chain.

The fix is to set weather app location permissions to “While Using” rather than “Always,” which allows the app to function while limiting background collection.

6. WhatsApp

WhatsApp uses end-to-end encryption for messages, which is genuinely protective.

What it also does is share metadata with Meta, its parent company, and that metadata tells a significant story.

WhatsApp shows if you’re online or when you last were online, making it a useful tool for anyone monitoring your activity patterns.

The app’s location-sharing capabilities can be exploited to make your phone transmit its location to another device in real time.

Beyond the stalking risk built into the “last seen” feature, WhatsApp’s integration with Meta’s data ecosystem means that while the content of your messages stays encrypted, information about who you talk to, when, and how often contributes to the behavioral profile Meta maintains on you.

Meta’s products, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, were found to be the most privacy-invasive platforms across all categories examined in a 2025 privacy ranking by Incogni researchers.

Turning off “Last Seen” and “Online” status in WhatsApp’s privacy settings reduces one of the more direct surveillance features.

7. Amazon (and Alexa-Enabled Devices)

The Amazon shopping app collects purchasing behavior, browsing history, and search data as many people expect.

What extends beyond expectation is the data pipeline that Amazon has built through its presence in millions of homes via Alexa-enabled devices.

Amazon devices like Alexa-powered Echo speakers and displays can collect and store voice recordings, including ones unrelated to your use of an Alexa-powered device.

In 2023, Amazon agreed to pay a $25 million settlement to the FTC over the collection of voice recordings of children.

Amazon’s acquisition of Ring and Blink, which make video doorbells and security cameras, adds additional data collection streams.

Questions about whether law enforcement can access Ring video recordings without the device owner’s permission have produced real legal disputes and ongoing policy debates.

The shopping app on your phone and the smart speaker in your kitchen connect to the same company and contribute to the same data profile.

8. Candy Crush and Mobile Games

Free mobile games aren’t free.

The currency is data, and several of the most popular games collect and sell a surprising volume of it.

Candy Crush Saga is notorious for harvesting data.

The game’s developer collects personal information, including how players behave in-game, purchase histories, interactions with other players, and location data, which it sells to third-party advertisers.

The business model applies broadly across free mobile gaming.

Games request permissions that have no logical connection to gameplay, including location access, contact lists, and microphone access, and the data collected through those permissions generates revenue through data brokers and advertising networks.

The practical response is to review permissions for any game on your phone and revoke access to location, contacts, and microphone if the game has no legitimate need for them.

Most don’t.

9. Dating Apps

Dating apps collect some of the most sensitive personal information available, including sexual preferences, relationship goals, physical characteristics, and location data precise enough to identify your home neighborhood.

Research found that numerous social media and dating platforms kept user data for up to 180 days after users deleted their accounts.

That means the data you entered before deciding to delete your profile doesn’t disappear when you delete it.

Location data on dating apps is a particular concern.

Apps that show how far away other users are can, with enough data points, triangulate a user’s precise location through a technique called trilateration.

Researchers have demonstrated this on multiple major dating platforms over the years.

Limiting location permissions to “While Using,” using a general location rather than precise location when the app offers the option, and understanding the data retention policy before creating an account are the relevant precautions here.

10. Your Phone’s Default Apps and Permissions You Forgot You Granted

This last entry isn’t a single app. It’s everything you’ve given permission to that you no longer remember giving permission to.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation documented that a single data broker SDK can appear in hundreds of different apps, creating a location data pipeline across apps that seem completely unrelated to each other.

A fitness app, a recipe app, and a coupon app might all contain the same tracking SDK, and each one sends your location data to the same aggregator without your awareness.

Most apps make their money by monetizing data collected from users and devices instead of from the sale of the app itself.

That business model applies to flashlight apps, calculator apps, and keyboard replacement apps as readily as it applies to social media.