Google trackers are present 97% of Indian websites

The variety of apps requesting camera and microphone permissions on smartphones has reportedly grown from 45% to 68% and 28% to 54% respectively over the past five years, revealed a study.

Google is the third largest party data is shared with, followed by Facebook. Google trackers were featured in 97% of websites and Facebook trackers in 55%, as per the study by Arrka, a data security and privacy firm.

The study, titled “Data privacy status of Indian mobile apps and websites”, involved 201 Indian mobile apps and websites from 100 organizations across 25 industries. Arrka has monitored various privacy metrics over five years.

According to the findings, about 42% of Android apps share data with Google and 25% with Facebook. One possible reason could be that organizations provide newer services / features based on these permissions.

Shivangi Nadkarni, CEO, and Sandeep Rao, Principal Consultant at Arrka, said, “India Inc. appears to have continued its trajectory of low attention to data privacy, with the unspoken ‘let the law come’ paradigm. This is evident from the data in this study where most of the specific privacy parameters seem to have only gotten worse.”