How To: Managing Your Android Security

Several popular Android apps regularly share your location and critical phone data such as your phone number with advertisers and others. The following sections contain tips you can use to keep the data in your Android smartphone out of the wrong hands.

Permissions

You can view the information that each app you’ve downloaded is able to access. You may be surprised what information they can access. .

  1. Go to Settings > Apps to view a list of the apps you’ve downloaded.
  2. Then select the app you want to check up on and go to the Permission section to view what information it has access to.
  3. Delete any apps that have access to information you’re not comfortable sharing.

Location

You can check to see which of your apps are using location information. If an app has access to your location, this means that it might be sharing this information with other apps, or storing this information for advertising purposes.

  1. Go to Settings > Location. This displays a list of all the apps on your phone that use location information.
  2. Delete any applications that want access to information you’re not comfortable sharing.
  3. You can also deny any application access to your location information from this list.

App Comments

Before you download any app, scan the download page for complaints about how an app functions or how it functions on your device.

Updates

Whenever an application wants to update, be sure to scan the new permissions list that appears before you install the update to make sure it isn’t asking for new permissions you don’t want it to have.