Hong Kong requires most unnecessary permissions of data from apps: study

A NordVPN research showed that regions may have different regulations.

A study showed that apps in Hong Kong and Taiwan dominate Android and iOS charts in requiring the most unnecessary permissions.

Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity consultant at NordVPN, said this may stem from regulatory environments.

“These numbers are affected by the nature of the popular applications studied. Due to social media tools as well as comics and Extensive use of other media apps, East Asian countries perform worse in terms of permissions,” he added.

The research also found that 42% of apps ask for permissions related to user activity outside of the actual app/ This means they are designed to collect user data across other apps and websites. 

Also, 37% of the apps studied asked for access to the user's location, 35% asked for access to the camera, 22% asked for access to the photo library, and 16% asked for access to the microphone.