Over 50% of U.S. cellphone users surveyed passed on installing an app over privacy fears

A recent survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals that over half of U.S. cellphone users have at one time, decided against installing an app for fear of losing their privacy. This decision not to install an app for fear that it would dig into personal information is something that has been experienced equally by both Apple iPhone and Android users.

2,254 Americans were surveyed from March 15 to April 3rd on both landlines and cellphones. Of those surveyed, 88% own a mobile phone of one type or another and 43% of those people have installed at least one app on their handset. That is up from the 31% who installed at least one app in 2011. Getting back to the worries about the misuse of personal information, 30% of smartphone owners have removed an app when they found out how much information about them was being collected. Men were more apt to delete an app for this reason than women. The same percentage have turned off the location tracking feature on their handset, again, worried about the misuse of personal information. That compares with just 7% of featurephone owners who did the same thing.

Do you back up the data on your cellphone? If you do, you would be just like the 41% of those surveyed who backup photos and contacts. It might seem a bit odd, but those who had their phone stolen or lost were not more likely to back up data than before their device was jacked or went missing.

BlackBerry owners were more likely to report a phone stolen or lost. 45% of those who identified themselves as 'Berry users reported a phone stolen or lost while 35% of Android users and 30% of Apple iPhone users said the same thing.

source NYPost